One Wild Night
by Mercedes Watson
Summary: One party, one night that will forever change the lives of the X Men. AU. Romy, Kurtty, DuncanJeanScott. Character deaths.
1. Sex, Drugs and Lies

One Wild Night  
Chapter 1  
Sex, Drugs and Lies

Kitty rolled over and hugged Lockheed tighter to her, unable to sleep. Rogue had snuck out yet again and now she was waiting for her roommate's return, ready with an excuse in case Ororo came in for a quick room-check and noticed Rogue gone. It had been going on for a least a few months, when Kitty caught her the first time sneaking back into their room, knocking over things and stoned out of her mind. Rogue was good, she had to give her that. It was like the Goth had a sixth sense about what nights were good to sneak out and what nights weren't. Apparently tonight was a good night because she was gone again. At first it didn't worry her too much, Rogue had always occasionally snuck out and came back just fine but now she was coming back more and more often either stoned or drunk or bleeding from a fight or hiding out from the police. It killed her inside that her friend was destroying herself with her new lifestyle. She desperately wanted to say something to her, to anyone, but knew that it would end with Rogue hating her for telling her secret. And she definitely didn't want someone like Rogue being angry with her.

There was a noise outside on the balcony and Kitty looked up to see Rogue pitching herself over the railing and landing flat on her face on the concrete of the balcony. Rogue tried to push herself up but failed and lay on the floor.

With a resigned sigh, Kitty got out of bed and padded over to Rogue. "Rogue, ya okay?"

Rogue drew in a breath and rolled over, looking straight up at the sky instead of Kitty. "Just fuckin' dandy." She said flatly

_She like, must be crashing already._ Kitty thought to herself.

Rogue sniffed and wiped her nose, the beginnings of a nose bleed starting to flow from her nose. "Ya got a tissue?"

"We got tissues inside." Kitty said, using the opportunity as an excuse to get Rogue to go inside.

Rogue stuck her arms up at Kitty and said "Help me up."

Kitty grabbed her gloved hand and pulled Rogue to her feet, guiding her inside. She set the Southerner down on the closed toilet seat and got a wad of toilet paper and held it to her nose. Rogue automatically leaned her head all the way back which allowed for the blood in her sinuses to start dripping down her throat.

"Rogue, like, lean forward or it's all gonna go down your throat." Kitty said and tried tilting her head forward, but Rogue ducked out of her reach.

"Don't tell me what ta do! Yoah way makes no sense." Rogue snapped and leaned her head back again. Kitty sighed and put her hands on her hips, and waited. Sure enough a few moments later, Rogue hiccoughed and spat blood into the sink.

"See, what did I tell you?"

"Ya didn't tell me nothin'." Rogue snarled, turning on the faucet and rinsing the sink out. She sat back down and shot a glare at Kitty, but she was leaning forward as Kitty had instructed her earlier.

A few minutes passed in silence before Kitty carefully pulled the stained wad of toilet paper away from Rogue's face. "I think it's stopped."

"Yeah, whatever, night." Rogue yawned and exited the room. Kitty shut off the light in the bathroom and went back into the bedroom proper, seeing that Rogue was already sound asleep where she lay on her bed. She looked across the room at Rogue just before she got into bed and wondered whether or not to at least cover her up.

_Might as well unless I, like, want Ororo yelling at me tomorrow._ With that thought Kitty took off Rogue's boot and covered her with the comforter, getting a slight snore in thanks.

* * *

Something was loud and noisy and completely inappropriate and unnecessary for this time in the morning. There was no way it was 6 am already, because Rogue had just gotten in and laid down to catch some sleep not ten minutes ago. It was probably Bobby playing some sort of prank and when she caught him she was going to give him hell. Just as soon as the room would stop spinning and she forced the bile climbing up her throat back down.

"C'mon _on_ Rogue, like get up. You're so gonna be late for school."

Rogue opened up one make-up caked eye to see Kitty standing there, looking entirely too perky. "Stop shakin' me or Ah'm gonna throw up on ya." She mumbled.

"Gross!" Kitty yelped, hastily retreating about a foot.

Rogue made a noise in her throat and pushed herself up to sit. Her stomach seemed to be settling down and the room spinning was most likely due to Kitty's incessant shaking.

"Rogue? Are you okay, you like, look really sick. Maybe you should stay home. . ."

"Ah'm fine." Rogue said, pushing a lock of hair out of her eyes. "Go down stairs and ask Scott if he'll wait a few minutes for me."

"Okay." Kitty said reluctantly before phasing down through the floor.

Rogue flopped back down in bed, breathing carefully through her nose. School nights were not the best nights to be sneaking out on. But in a way it had been worth it, the party had been awesome and coke, as it turned out, gave her a killer high. And to top it off she had seen Remy there briefly before being dragged off by Risty to the bathroom to snort a line or two. She liked him a lot and wouldn't mind shaking up with him just for the sake of having someone to get off with, but he was just so intense that it was a little intimidating even for her. It was like he didn't even care whether or not he made it to the next day, so long as he was having the greatest time possible. Since he had rolled into town, he'd been thrown in Juvie at least 4 times. She smiled at the memory of the last time he had gotten arrested, hilariously taunting the cops until they almost bodily threw him into the back of their car.

Rogue rolled out of bed and made her way into the bathroom, washing off yesterday's make-up and freshening herself up for today. Ten minutes later she walked into the kitchen to see that she wasn't the only one who had gotten up late today.

"Where's Scott and Jean?" Rogue asked, sitting down at the table with an apple and a glass of orange juice.

"Jean's totally hurlin' her guts up in the bathroom." Jubilee said, an excited smile lighting her Asian features as she deposited her dishes in the sink. "She's been in there since 6."

"Jubes, you are seriously, like, way too amused by that." Kitty said, picking at her cereal with a slightly disgusted look.

"Why? She didn't say anythin' disgustin'." Rogue said and bit into her apple

"You weren't here for the play-by-play with sound effects." Kitty grumbled while Jubilee grinned happily, pleased at her handiwork.

* * *

The alarm was about to go off, she knew it. She lay wide awake in the dim, muted light of her room and waited for it knowing that if she got up now they would keep her home from school. Jean willed her nausea down, wringing the sheets between her fingers. Just a few more seconds, a few more seconds and she could go. She squeezed her eyes shut and swallowed hard, feeling the contents of her stomach go back down.

_Just a few more_ she kept telling herself. Over and over she repeated it in her head, distracting herself with the rhythm of her thoughts.

_Just a—_

The alarm went off, signaling six am and Jean bolted from her bed and raced into the bathroom, making it just in time to heave her gastric contents into the toilet. When she was done she took a shaky breath, wiping the sweat off of her brow with a trembling hand. Round one was done and now she would sit and wait for round two, the cool porcelain cooling her heated face. It had been like this for almost a week and a half and it didn't help that fact that she was late for her period too. Her anxiety about the implications of those two facts put together was enough to make her sick all over again. She hugged the toilet, breathing heavily through her nose and remembering the night she might regret for the rest of her life.

It had been three weeks ago at Duncan's house. He was throwing a party for the football and soccer teams, celebrating their championship wins. She hadn't brought Scott with her; they had a fight earlier in the day about her going to this very party and "spending too much time around Matthews". What did Scott know about anything? She had waited and waited for him to get his act together and was tired of missing out on things because of him. So she stopped waiting for him and started hanging around Duncan more. He at least gave her a sign that he was interested, Scott probably cared more about the Blackbird that he did for her. It was around nine o'clock that someone showed up with a stolen keg and shortly afterwards Duncan had offered her a beer. She refused at first but then Duncan had said:

"_What's'a matter Jean, afraid Scotty might get mad?" _

She had grabbed the plastic red cup and drank it's entire contents and held it out for more to the cheers of her friends and teammates around her. After her third or fourth one things began to get a little hazy and she remembered giggling and finding everything hilariously funny, even when Taryn fell in the pool in her dry clean only outfit. She tried to remember how she ended up making out with Duncan in his parents' bedroom, in nothing but her panties but she couldn't recall anything for the life of her. After that she remembered stumbling into the foyer of the Xavier Institute, telling Scott how very funny shopping carts were.

She hadn't thought anything about it until three days later at school Duncan cornered her alone at her locker in between classes and handed her panties back to her.

"Jean? Jean, are you okay in there?"

Jean was yanked back into the present by the sound of knocking at the door and Scott's voice calling through. She made a face at the foul state and smell of the bathroom and gagged; her stomach empty of anything to get rid of.

"I'm-I'm fine." She shakily responded, flushing the toilet and standing a little unsteadily.

"Are you sure? You want me to go get Beast?"

"No, no. I'm fine, really, I am Scott." She turned on the faucet in the sink and drank directly from the spigot. She swirled the water around in her mouth before spitting it out. "I think I just ate some of Kitty's left over cooking."

"But, Kitty hasn't cooked dinner in three days." Scott said. "And what could possibly possess you to eat her _leftovers_?"

Jean took a deep breath, blocking out everything concerning her current predicament and opened the door. "The heart wants what it wants." She answered him. She left a confused Scott behind her as she walked back to her room, with a surprising amount of steadiness and confidence. It was only seconds though, before Scott's hand was on her arm.

"Jean, I think you should stay home today."

"What? No. I have a test in chemistry and I need to be there for the soccer banquet after school today—"

"You can take the test tomorrow and I can pick up the sweatshirt or whatever this year's present for the soccer team is."

"No, Scott I am not staying home from school today." She said and turned away from him and continued to her room.

"Jean, you look like hell." Scott pleaded with her as she reached the door to her room.

"And don't you just look so lovely first thing in the morning." She snapped at him and slammed the door to her room shut.

* * *

A/N: I know I really shouldn't be starting another story right now considering that this will be the third one I have going. What can I say, I have an over active imagination.

The thing about Risty: Ok, in this story, I'm going to have it be that there really was a person named Risty, but then Mystique kidnapped her or whatever you like and when Rogue found out that Mystique was posing as Risty, the real Risty came back because Mysti let her go or she got rescued if you want something heroic. The basic point is that there was a Risty, Mystique impersonated her for a while and now the real Risty is back. Mmmk?

Please review, I would hate to have to get Jean to throw up on you.

Shockgoddess


	2. Weird

_One Wild Night_  
Chapter 2  
Weird

They had fifteen minutes left to get to school by the time they were all piled in Scott's car. The whole way there Scott bounced back and forth between reprimanding them all for not getting up on time and asking Jean if she was okay. His words fell on deaf ears though, Kitty was nodding off in her seat, Rogue who was sat in the middle was enjoying "Fuel for Fire" by Metallica too much to listen, Kurt who was on the other side of Rogue ignored him as he was one of the people who had actually managed to get up on time and Jean was obviously trying to quell her stomach again. They were all in a right state as they clamored out of the convertible, all but one of their number anxious to get to homeroom on time. Rogue hung around walking slower and slower until they all disappeared around the corner and she was left alone. She stopped in her tracks and dug around in her bag. After a few seconds of rummaging, she found the plastic bag containing her wet sticks. It was Friday now, and she had five left, so that would probably get her by until Monday when she could get a hold of Lance. The bell for homeroom shrilly echoed around the halls and instead of heading for room 117, she instead headed to the bathroom to smoke a stick. On her way there though, a flash of neon colored paper caught her eye on one of the bulletin boards. She looked it over for a few seconds and raised an eyebrow. So, Duncan was having another party and basically he had invited the whole school.

_Could be interestin'_. She thought, putting her plastic baggy away. If she was going to go crash this party, then she was going to need to save her sticks for later. Pulling an about face, Rogue headed for homeroom. Once there she planted her self in her usual seat, flipping the teacher off for giving her a tardy slip by pretending to scratch her nose.

* * *

Lord, this day was just dragging on and on and on for Kitty. She was using her arms as a chin rest on her small desk while her teacher rambled on about plants and photosynthesis. This was so boring, who cared how plants used sunlight for energy? Long as they looked pretty and didn't have any bees in them, Kitty was happy. Kitty yawned and checked her watch; nearly groaning aloud at the snail's pace time seemed to be crawling at. 

_I swear that clock is moving backwards, it was 10:17 five minutes ago!_ Kitty buried her head in her arms and tried not to focus on how her pink sweater was like a pillow. Just as she was dropping off, Kitty felt something poking her in the arm. Fearing that it was Mr. Barlow prodding her, she cautiously peeked up and saw that he was still at the front of the class. The thing poked her in the arm again and she looked over at the person next to her.

"Pass it on." The guy whispered out of the corner of his mouth, holding a piece of bright orange paper. Casting a furtive glance towards the front of the room, Kitty took the paper. It was a flyer for Duncan Matthew's next party bash while his parents were out of town. It looked like he had invited the whole school, with the exception of the freshmen of course. Kitty rolled her eyes and lazily passed the piece of paper on, not caring that it fluttered to the floor. She settled down on the folds of her arms and drifted off to sleep. . .

The party was great. Kitty was boogying down with a couple of cute guys on top of Duncan's coffee table. Captain Kirk was serving drinks at the bar and Charlie from Driveshaft was the front man for one of the school's garage bands. It was a pretty cool scene and everyone there was having a good time. There was a "look out!" shouted just before Kitty was kit in the head with a beach ball.

"Sorry Katzchen!" Kurt apologized, bamfing over to retrieve the ball. It seemed perfectly normal that he was wearing and pink tutu with a tiara.

"Like, watch where you're throwing that thing!" Kitty huffed as he disappeared in a cloud of smoke to continue his game of volleyball with Toad, who was in a three hundred dollar Armani suit.

Deciding to get a drink, Kitty jumped down from the table and headed out to the pool that was filled with Koi. She grabbed a flute of Kool Aid as a Chippendale waiter walked by and joined Rogue at the deep end of the pool.

"Cool fish, huh." Rogue said and threw some bread at them.

"Yeah, there sure are a lot of them in there." Kitty answered. "You think Duncan got them at Big Lots?"

"Nah," Rogue said shaking her head. "Ah think he said somethin' about getting them at Super Fresh."

"Oh, that's cool. They have good fish there." Kitty finished off her drink and threw it to the Koi, who ate the glass. "I'm gonna go back inside, you should come its fun in there."

"Nah, Ah'm gonna stay out here an' feed the fish."

"Suit yourself." Kitty went back inside and noticed that it had been changed to a moon bounce. There was also a bunch of those little playpen plastic balls all over the place and she had to be careful not to land on one of them. Through the glittering light of the disco ball, Kitty could see Storm and the Professor waltzing through the ball pit and waved at them as she bounced around.

Kitty went around the gigantic moon bounce socializing with everyone she knew and dancing with a few people and played laser tag with Kurt for a while. Rogue joined them later on and Lance showed up too and started playing with them.

"This is all yoah fault." Rogue said, after getting shot in the head by Lance. Kitty watched Rogue fall down and upon looking down saw that the moon bounce had turned into a bottomless black abyss.

Kitty woke up with a start, alone in her classroom. What a weird dream. She gathered her books together with a yawn and headed out of the class room. It was a good thing that she had lunch now or else she would be super late for class. She saw Rogue ahead of her in the hallway and ran to catch up with her.

"Hey Rogue, like wait up!" Kitty called after the Goth.

Rogue stopped and waited for her, a slightly irritated look on her face. "How come you're so late for lunch?"

"Fell asleep in class." Kitty answered.

"Ya did not." Rogue said unbelievingly.

"Look, I like have the sweater marks on my face to prove it." She defended herself, pointing to the patterned lines on her cheek.

"How 'bout that, Kitty Pryde falls asleep in class." Rogue said as they stopped at Kitty's locker.

"Yep. I'm, like, a normal teenager after all." Kitty shoved some books in her locker and grabbed her lunch. "Are you gonna eat lunch with us outside today or no?"

"Nah, Ah've got . . . somethin' ta do."

"Like what?"

"None of your business!" Rogue snapped and stormed off.

"Just like, bite my head off why don't ya?" Kitty called after her.

Rogue waved her off and continued on down the hall. She knew Kitty was just looking out for her, but the girl just didn't understand what it was like. She didn't know what it was like to have an almost constant headache, to constantly hear whispers of voices in the background. Getting high allowed her to have her own mind back so she could think what she wanted and felt what she wanted. But that wasn't what she was going to go do right now. It had become some what of a ritual of hers to go outside and sit under a tree by herself and eat lunch in the hopes that Remy would show up and hang out for a while. As she stepped outside into the bright sunlight, Rogue put on her headphones and started listening to "C'mon C'mon" by the Von Bondies. Bobbing her head to the beat, she threw herself down under a tree and took out her lunch and sketchbook and waited.

* * *

Remy LeBeau was nineteen years old and loving life. These idiots wouldn't know what had happened until he was miles away and by that time it would be too late to catch him. He stuck his tongue out in concentration as he picked at the electronic lock that kept him in his cell. It wouldn't be keeping him in here too much longer though, he almost had it picked. But he did have to admit that this place was a little bit harder to break out of than the ridiculous Juvenile Hall. He practically ran that place by the time he turned eighteen, knowing every little way out and back in just so he could mess with the cops' heads. One time he had freaked the night guard out by sneaking in and sleeping over. _Dieu_ the police in this town was a joke. He'd had harder times getting away from security guards in New Orleans than these fools. 

The lock pick slipped in his fingers and jammed into an electric circuit, sending a sharp shock through him. Muttering curses under his breath, Remy tucked the picks away and stood, placing a hand on the side of the electronic key pad just outside his cell. In seconds it began to grow hot and whine with the buzz of over-excited particles. He let go and turned his back on the blast that left a sizeable crater in the wall. The cell block filled with smoke, providing the perfect cover for him to slip out of this place.

Remy grabbed the bars of his cell and gave them a good shake, finding that the blast had loosened them a great deal. He backed up and ran at them, placing a strong flying kick on them and they groaned before slowly falling forward on the ground. A wild smirk planted on his face, Remy ran down the smoke filled hall. Towards the end he went by a group of guards like his was invisible and just couldn't let the opportunity pas him by. Silently walking behind one of them, he took the wad of gum out of his mouth and placed it on the back of the man's jacket collar. He gave it a slight charge and let go, retreating a few steps. The gum popped loudly, scaring the guard so bad that his fired his gun three times at nothing. Remy laughed loudly, drawing the attention of his captors.

"There he is, get him!" one of them shouted.

Remy stopped laughing long enough to wave good bye before taking off down the hazy hallway, ducking once in a while as a gunshot got a little too close. Up ahead the gate to the cell block was closing, cutting off anyone stuck inside from the processing building and the outside world. He slipped through just in the nick of time, the gate closing just after he yanked his arm out of its path. He looked around and saw that this part of the building was empty and he relaxed somewhat. Brushing himself off, he casually started off down the empty hallway and left the building.

&

After waking around aimlessly for a while, Remy found himself near the grounds of Bayville High School. He needed a place to lay low for a while and the cops would never think to look for him anywhere even remotely near a school. _School kids make good targets too,_ he thought, pocketing the wallet of an unsuspecting and oblivious kid. His fortune got even better as he caught sight of that Goth chick that hung around with all those Institute kids. Now _there_ was a woman worth his time. Rogue--even her name seemed to fit right in with his life. She was angry, dark, independent, a free thinker and had a lack of respect for authority that could rival his.

Remy snuck up behind her, leaned down and pulled one earphone away from her ears. "Surely you ain't cuttin' class _mon chere_." He purred into her ear.

"For tha thousandth tahme, Swamp Rat, Ah _ain't_ yoah _chere_." Rogue growled up at him, setting down her pencil and sketch pad.

She didn't take his shit either, that was another thing he liked about her. "Fine, River Rat."

Rogue rolled her heavily made-up eyes. "Ya finally annoy the prison guards so much that they let ya out early?"

Remy picked a leaf from the tree, seeming to contemplate it. "Let me out, I escaped, same t'ing really." He shrugged and dropped the leaf in Rogue's hair.

Rogue laughed. "You are such a goddamned liar."

"You don't believe me?" Remy asked, sinking down to sit next to Rogue.

She shook her head. "Mah momma taught me not ta believe the words of a thief."

"Yo' _mere_ also taught you how t' be a terrorist, Remy don't see you followin' dat advice." He mumbled. "Ow! What was dat fo'?"

Rogue just glared at him as he rubbed the now-sore spot on his arm. "She ain't mah momma."

"Alright, Remy sorry." He said and then smirked. "But you really don't look dat intimidatin' with a leaf stickin' out of yo' hair like dat."

Rogue snarled in a way that would have made Logan proud while her hands flew to her head. She picked the leaf out of her hair and threw it at him before shoving him so hard he fell over onto his side. "Ah swear ta God Ah hate ya." She said with a smile on her face.

"Remy swear t' God ya should go out fo' de wrestlin' team." He sat up and brushed the dirt off of his shirt.

"Ya'd like that, wouldn't ya?"

"Actually, now dat I t'ink about it, _oui,_ I would." Remy said, smirking that incorrigible half-smile of his. "Of course, I'd prefer it if it was me you were wrestlin', but I don't t'ink I'd mind watchin'."

"Ya are _so_ disgustin'!" Rogue shouted at him, wading up a piece of scrap paper and throwing it at him. "Pig."

"Now Remy can't be as bad as half de losers who waste their time here."

Rogue shrugged. "Ah guess not." She said, enthralled in picking at a spot of her boots. After a few seconds of doing this she looked back up at him, a bright almost hopeful looked on her face. "Hey, speakin' of losers, the head loser is throwin' a party tonight and Ah'm gonna go crash it. Wanna come?"

"Dere gonna be beer?"

Rogue nodded. "Ah'm pretty sure someone will steal a keg."

Remy made a face. "Kegs are so high school."

"His parents have got a loaded liquor cabinet."

"Alright, count me in."

"Ah'll meet ya outside of that Seven-eleven ya always steal smokes from."

"How come I can't be de charmin' gentleman dat I am and pick you up?" Remy asked, lighting up a cigarette.

"Because yoah not a gentleman and Ah'm on probation again." Rogue said and took his cigarette right from his mouth.

"Again?" he said, watching Rogue smoke his cigarette.

Rogue nodded and handed his smoke back to him. "Ah got busted last week for smokin' in the bathroom. Again."

Remy laughed. "You really don't fit in at dat place, you know dat?"

"Yeah Ah know." Rogue sighed. "But the digs are better than the Brotherhood's and they haven't thrown meh out yet. . ."

"Ya could always crash at my place." Remy offered.

"Thanks, but Ah wouldn't want anyone thinkin' that Ah actually like ya or somethin' crazy like that."

"You know ya want ta."

"Ya know Ah can't." Rogue fired back, the defensive front about her powers slipping into place.

"Ya can," Remy said, stretching out so that he lay on the ground, propping himself up with one arm. "But yo' too afraid to."

"Ah am _not_ afraid." Rogue said, standing up.

"Well, if you ain't afraid, den what's stopping ya?" Remy challenged, standing as well. "Ya don't fit in at dat Institute, ya don't fit in here, ya got a rap sheet dat's just as long as mine. . .what's stoppin' ya from throwin' away all de t'ings dat keep ya from livin' yo' life de way ya want to?"

Rogue gazed up at him steadily, not backing down from the fire in his eyes. "Because Ah don't wanna be like you."

Remy stepped back and blinked as if he had been struck.

"And if Ah was so afraid," Rogue continued. "Would Ah do this?" She pulled a piece of cloth out of her pocket and placed it over his lips before standing on her tiptoes and pressing her lips against his for a long, hard moment. She broke the kiss just as quickly as she had started it, picked up her bag and headed into the school building.

Remy was left to stand there, stunned at what had just happened. Did she just insult him and then kiss him? She did. Remy couldn't believe it. She insulted him, said she was better than him essentially and then she kissed him. It confounded him. He returned to his senses and saw the piece of cloth that had floated to the ground and picked it up. He turned it over in his hands, oddly intrigued by the lipstick on just one side. That was all that had separated him from her powers, just a thin piece of material. He tucked it in his pocket and walked off, not really sure where he was headed.

Rogue watched Remy pick up the square of cloth and walk off. She didn't mean to hurt him, but it was the truth. Rogue didn't want to be like him, not caring whether or not she lived from one day to the next. Remy did what he wanted for the pure thrill of tempting fate to take his miserable life from him. If he died in a drag race tomorrow, it would be the way he would want to go. The ultimate 'fuck you' to the circumstances that had lead him to where he was today. Rogue on the other hand stubbornly vowed to keep her life and fight for it. She had to fight for her existence, for her body and for her mind and to just give all of that up wasn't in her. To waste all the energy she put in keeping the psyches at bay for a cheap but deadly thrill would be a waste in her eyes. Sure death was the ultimate way to get rid of the psyches, but then Rogue wouldn't have life and to her that was unacceptable.

"Miss Darkholme, what are you doing in the halls at this hour?" Great, Kelley, just what she needed. She had been so caught up in her daydreams that she hadn't even heard him coming.

"Nothin'." she replied, shrugging her shouders

"Shouldn't you be in class?"

Rogue just shrugged at him and said nothing, not wanting to waste any more words on him.

"Get to where you're supposed to be or it'll be detention for you and the rest of those Institute disgraces."

"Isn't that a little illegal?" Rogue said. "Ah would hate ta have'ta go home and tell Charles Xavier that me and, by extension, all of the rest of the Institute kids were unfairly threatened with detention."

Principal Kelley looked as if he would like nothing better than for Rogue to burst into flame and burn to death on the spot. "Get to class. Now." He growled.

Rogue shrugged and walked off, feeling satisfied with herself. Maybe she fit in more at the Institute than she thought.

* * *

A/N: Wow, this chapter got really long. I was so planning to have everyone else's lunch in there and maybe a little more of Jean and maybe Logan's story but the Romyness just took it all up. Guess I'll save it for next chapter! 

I am seriously loving this story right now, especially all the reviews I've been getting for it. I might just put everything else on hold until I can get this entire thing out. Maybe, we'll see.

Reviewers:

IvyZoe: 'EW' is right. Anyway, when I said that Remy was 'too intense' for Rogue, I meant that he's a bit too wild for her. Rogue thinks that even though she does drugs and stuff, she's in control of it and that she's not going to get hurt. Remy on the other hand, does stuff (drag racing, robbery, etc) that could get him hurt. In fact, the higher possibility of him getting hurt, the better. Rogue's a little leery of that but, as we saw, she's starting to get over that. Whether or not that's a good thing remains to be seen.

Ishy: Look, I actually got a chapter out fast! How about that? Btw, is there anything you don't read on 14: Ta-da!

Toxic-touch-727: I'm glad you like it so much. Snorting is indeed the right term for when you take cocaine by sniffing it up your nose. Who said fanfics weren't educational?

Thegambit23: Yes, you did read the sings that Jean might be pregnant right, you are not dense. :) But as to whether or not she really pregnant . . . you'll have to keep reading.

Before i forget, Charlie and the band Driveshaft are from 'Lost', which was created by J.J. Abrams, so i guess he owns them. I wishI owned Charlie.

Feed the Authoress please, she's hungry.

Shockgoddess.


	3. Unrequited Love

_One Wild Night  
_Chapter 3  
Unrequited Love

Kitty shut her locker as Rogue stormed off down the hall. She had wanted to call out 'just don't get caught, ok?' but that probably would have gotten her into a shouting match with Rogue. She trudged off to lunch, so entrapped in her thoughts that she didn't even notice when she knocked over Kurt on his way back from getting seconds.

"Like, sorry Fuzzy. I didn't even like, see you there." She said, picking up his fallen soda, which luckily had not exploded all over the place upon impact with the floor.

"Ze image inducer must be vorking better zhan I zought." Kurt said, getting up off of the floor. She helped him pick up the rest of his lunch that had fallen on the floor, making a face at the now ruined salad.

"Ew, you like actually eat those things?" She said, throwing the wilted lettuce into the trash.

"Jean eats them, and she looks okay to me."

"Jean was sick this morning." Kitty pointed out.

"_Ach_, vell, better it fell on ze floor then." Kurt shrugged and they started off towards the lunch tables outside. They waked in relative silence, something that was unusual for Kitty. Usually she was going on and on about something that happened in some class at a million miles an hour, pushing the language centers of Kurt's brain to their limits.

"Somezhing vrong Katzchen?" he asked.

"Huh? Oh, no, nothing's wrong. Why?" said Kitty, hugging her books to her chest.

"You seem quieter zhan usual." _A lot quieter._ He added on mentally.

"I just got a lot on my mind is, like all." She said and forced a weak smile at Kurt.

_You lie._ He thought at her. _Your eyebrows don't crinkle zhat vay vhen you really smile. _But he kept those thoughts to himself along with his affection for her and just said, "You know vhere to find me if you ever vant to talk, Ja?"

"Gut Bomb or the arcade?" Kitty said, this time with a stronger smile.

"Zhat's right." Kurt said with a fanged smile, sitting down at the table where Scott and Jean were already seated. "Vhat's vrong vith her?" he asked, seeing that Scott was snapping his fingers in front of a non-responsive Jean's face.

"I don't know, man. It's like she's not even in there." Scott answered. "She just sat down and blanked out on me."

"You don't think she's having, like, another power spaz, do you?" Kitty worried asked

"I hope not, or we're in serious trouble."

* * *

Today was going surprisingly well so far for Jean. Her second period teacher had been out today so she used the opportunity to study for her Chemistry test, which was the period after lunch. She felt pretty good so far too and had even been able to get so involved in a conversation with Taryn that she momentarily forgot about her problem. But now she was pretty sure that her good day was going to take a turn for the not-so-good.

_Why does cafeteria food have to smell so revolting?_ Jean thought, swallowing down a gag. She grabbed a salad from the questionable salad bar and headed outside to sit with Scott, Kitty and Kurt. She could feel her mind wanting to fall into to chasm of anxiety about Duncan but willed herself not to. She had certain appearances to keep up, and if people saw her going to pieces, they would talk. And then the rumors would start. And then Duncan would get on her case and then Scott and then Scott would talk to the Professor and then—

_Stop it!_ Jean chided herself. _It's probably just a stomach flu . . . that I can't seem to get over. _

"Earth to Jean, come in Jean."

Jean started and realized that her feet had carried her to their usual lunch table and that she had been sitting and staring at her salad for a few minutes.

"Space case much?" Scott asked.

"Um, yeah, just a little distracted." Jean said, knowing it to be the biggest understatement of the century. "Chem test next period and all."

"Relax." Scott said, putting an arm around her shoulder and giving it a reassuring squeeze. "I'm sure you'll do fine."

"Yeah, I mean, you like totally own that class." Kitty said, and took a bite of her Veggie Burger.

Kurt also said something encouraging to Jean, but it was lost in the amount of food that he had managed to shove in there.

"That is like so gross." Kitty said to Kurt, making a face. Kurt just attempted to smile, which caused him to look like a chipmunk getting ready for winter.

The lunch period went on with out much incident, until near the end of the lunch period that Duncan and someone his jock friends sauntered up to the table.

"Hey Jeannie." Duncan said, with that slightly disgusting half smile on his face.

"Oh, hey Duncan." Jean replied, tucking a lock of red hair behind her ear and ignoring the glare from Scott.

"Did you hear about the party I'm having tonight at my house?"

"Yeah, kinda hard not to, there's flyers all over the place."

Duncan shrugged with a proud smile at the sheer brilliance of his idea. "I figured I'd go all out considering it's near the end of the school year and everything."

"Sounds like it's going to be fun."

"Yeah, well, I just wanted to invite you personally." Duncan said, tossing his ever-present football into the air and catching it. He then leaned forward and whispered in Jean's ear, "Maybe you could come by early and we can have our own private party."

Jean felt a wave of nauseated panic sweep through her and she tried her hardest not to let it show on her face. Her skills as an actress were tested even further when he gave her a quick peck on the cheek.

"See you at 8." He said and left, taking his jock friends with him.

"Wow, could he like, _be_ any more ape-ish?" Kitty said in Duncan's wake. "He makes Kurt's English sound perfect."

"Hey!" Kurt shouted, indignant.

"What, it's a compliment . . . I think." Kitty said, sounding none too sure of herself.

Kurt's retort was cut off though, but the shrill ringing of the bell signaling the end of the period. They all set off their different ways, heading off for different classes.

_I have to tell him. Tonight._ Jean thought, shakily heading off to chemistry.

* * *

Logan's eyes opened slowly and a cracked ceiling came into focus above him. He sat up in the strange bed he was in and rubbed his head. He had no idea where he was or how he had even got there. It was nothing new to him though, he had been plagued with memory problems for as long as he thought he could remember. He wasn't even quite sure whether or not he was really barely twenty years old. He just said he was because that was what some gas station attendant in Indiana had told him that was how old he looked.

Logan's eyes roamed the room around him, deciding that even though he couldn't remember it, he had had a good time. The women's undergarments thrown haphazardly around the room told him so.

_Chick must be in the shower._ He thought, the sound of water running through the pipes finally registering in his brain. Getting out of bed, Logan saw that his pants were on the floor next to the bed. He put them on and then started looking for his shirt. If he was lucky, he might be able to get out of here before whatever-her-name-was got out of the shower. Women tended not to like when he woke up in the morning and couldn't remember what their name was. He found his shirt and quickly pulled it on over his head, hearing the shower turn off. He managed to sneak out the front door just as she came out of the bathroom.

&

His boots thunked against the concrete as Logan walked around, hands in the pockets of his blue jeans, looking every bit like the delinquent he was. He stopped at a street corner and took a cigar out of a pocket in his jacket and lit it up, thick gray smoke curling into the air. He felt something cold and metal touch the back of his neck and sighed in exasperation.

"Cajun, I could smell ya half way down the block, yer not pullin' that stupid 'my-lighter-is-a-gun' thing again."

Remy put his lighter back into his pocket. "Yo' no fun."

"I'm plenty fun, yer just too stupid to see it." Logan said and started crossing the street.

"You? Fun? Please, a bag of hair is mo' fun den you, old man." Remy teased, jogging a few steps to keep from getting clipped by a car.

"Old man? I'm a year older than you, shithead."

"Says who?"

"Says my driver's license." Logan growled, growing steadily more and more annoyed with Remy's antics.

"Which one?" the Cajun asked

"The good one." Logan stopped his walking and turned to face Remy. "There a reason yer here annoyin' the hell outta me or are ya just lookin' to get hit?"

"Harry's lookin' for all de rent money we owe him and I didn't feel like goin' back dere an' hearin' him yell so I figured I'd find you." Remy said, fishing around in his coat for his pack of cigarettes. "_Merde_, all out."

"Those things'll kill ya, ya know."

Remy looked up from rummaging around in his coat and fixed Logan with a stare. "And like dat t'ing stickin' out of yo' mouth won't?"

Logan grinned in a feral way around his cigar and shrugged his shoulders once. "I don't gotta worry about it."

"Prick." Remy muttered. "Y'know, I t'ink Harry's serious about throwin' us out dis time."

"He won't." Logan said.

"What makes you so sho'?"

"Cause we give Harry too much good business." Logan said. "That and we can always just go and report him for sellin' to minors."

Remy thought it over for a few seconds and then shrugged. "Sounds good t' me."

* * *

Rogue sat in her last class of the day, blatantly staring at the clock. Kitty, who was sitting next to her, kept nudging her in the arm every once in a while in hopes to make Rogue pay attention. It never worked though; Rogue always stared down the clock the last fifteen minutes of class. It was something of a ritual of hers. She sighed roughly and leaned back in her chair as the last four and a half minutes of class lagged on and on and on. For some reason Duncan Matthew's party kept popping into her head, more specifically what she should wear. She was torn between going for catcalls of 'freak' from the jocks at the party or for just regular catcalls from just Remy. She would enjoy both either way; it was just a matter of what she wanted more.

_Ah could do both. . ._ Rogue thought, starting to doodle in the margins of her notebook. _Ah wonder if Ah still have that corset._

The final bell for the day rang and Rogue dropped her thoughts for the moment and gathered her books to go home.

"God Rogue, could you like be any ruder? I swear, it looked like Mr. Ward was going to shoot lasers out of his eyes." Kitty said as they moved through the throngs of people to get to Scott's car.

"Do ya think Ah could care any less?" Rogue deadpanned.

Kitty rolled her eyes at Rogue. "I'm just sayin', ya know? You're always kvetching about how you can never get any one to leave ya alone but then you're always doing stuff to make people pay attention to you."

Rogue's booted feet stopped in their tracks and she fixed Kitty with a threatening glare. "Ya callin' me a hypocrite?"

Kitty's eyebrows shot up on her head. "Well, no, I just, like. . ."

Rogue stepped closer to Kitty, as close as she dared before her reflexes took over and forced her to move away from Kitty lest she risk skin to skin contact. "Ah think it's high tahme ya started mindin' ya own business Kitty. What Ah do is my business and my reasons for do it are my own. Stay out of it."

With that Rogue turned and walked off, away from Scott's car.

"Vhat vas zhat about?"

Kitty let out a frustrated growling noise and threw her arms up in the air, her books and various papers falling and fluttering to the ground. "I, like, don't even know anymore! I am like so close to giving up on her, you know? I don't even know why I do it!"

It was Kitty's turn to walk off leaving a perplexed Kurt behind.

_Girls are vierd_. He thought as he picked up Kitty's forsaken books and walked over to Scott's car.

The ride home was much different from the ride to school. Jean was stressing out about how she might have answered every question wrong on the test to Scott, who reassuringly disagreed with her, telling her that she did just fine like she always did. Rogue was MIA, which was somewhat of a plus for Kurt. On one hand there was actually room to sit in what little of a backseat Scott's corvette had, but then on the other hand he had no excuse to sit almost indecently close to Kitty. Kurt looked at her from the other side of the backseat, seeing that she was obviously upset about something. Usually she was singing along with a song on the radio, bouncing in her seat to the music or gabbing his pointy elf ears off about what totally outrageous thing happened to her today. At first he found it somewhat annoying but at some point in time, when he hadn't been looking, he grew to like it, maybe even enjoy it. Now Kitty sat in the corner opposite of him, resting her face on her fist as the wind swept through her bangs, making them dance around her face. A slight scowl was set on her face which was unusual for her, since Kitty rarely ever showed any outward signs of anger other than the occasional swear word.

Kurt caught Kitty's attention and waved at her, a fanged smile curving his lips. She smiled and waved back.

"Vhat's up?" he asked.

"Nothin'. Just . . . stuff." Kitty said cryptically, clearly sending the message that she did not want to talk about it.

"Cool." Kurt replied. How come whenever it came to actual conversation with Kitty, his mind became a complete blank? He could think of a thousand things he wanted to talk with her about during the day but then when he saw her, he just sort of shut down.

The rest of the ride home Kurt spent resigned to silence, wondering how to get around the weird mental block he had whenever it came to Kitty. When they were getting out of the car, he decided to ask Kitty what was going on, why was she so tired and glum lately, no matter what language it came out in. It could lead to her opening up to him, possibly even crying a little bit, and then Kurt would have to console her maybe even get to hug her. It was absolutely horrible of him to think this way, he knew, but hormones overrode a Catholic conscience some days.

Just as he was about to open his mouth, Jean came by and whisked Kitty away claiming to need to talk to her about something in private.

_Scheisse._

Kurt closed his eyes slowly and let his head loll back so he was looking at the ceiling while balling his tridactyl hands into fists. He counted to ten in German before opening his eyes and disappearing in a cloud of sulfurous smoke.

Kitty looked back as she was practically frog marched by Jean outside. She saw Kurt standing there looking disappointed about something and felt a twinge of something in her chest. He looked like he had wanted to talk about something and she was just about to ask him to join her in the kitchen for a snack, but then Jean grabbed her arm and said something about needing to talk.

"Jean, you're like, hurting my arm." Kitty said, planting her feet down and forcing Jean's vice-like grip off of her arm.

"Oh." Jean said, like she had just noticed Kitty was there with her. "Sorry Kitty."

"It's okay." Kitty said, rubbing her now sore upper arm. "What is it that you wanted to talk to me about?"

Jean looked around and tucked a hank of red hair behind one ear. "Kitty, I can't go to that party tonight."

"Then, like, don't go."

"No you don't get it." Jean rolled her eyes. "I have to go. But I don't want to go alone."

"Why?" Kitty asked, giving Jean a slightly suspicious look.

Kitty swore she saw Jean go at least five shades paler, but as soon as she blinked, it was gone.

"Well, it's going to be a big party, and the professor is always saying that we shouldn't go to parties alone unless we know most of the people there and I think that this would be a good opportunity for the kids of the Xavier Institute to prove that we're really normal."

Kitty stared at Jean like she had had just spouted off a bunch of nonsense, which in Kitty's opinion, she just had. "We aren't normal though."

"Yes we are." Jean said with practiced ease. "We're just different."

Kitty laughed aloud. Was Jean hearing what she was saying? "Whatever." Kitty said. "If you didn't want to tell me, all you had to do was say so."

It then hit Kitty that this would be a chance to hang out with Kurt, maybe get him to come out of his shell a little bit and not be so weird.

"Do you want me to go with you?" she asked.

Jean's face flooded with relief. "Would you?"

"Yeah, I mean, I'm not, like, a freshman anymore and Duncan did say he was inviting the whole school so I don't see why I can't go."

"Thanks Kitty." Jean said, giving her a hug.

"Uh, you're welcome." Kitty awkwardly said as she was squeezed by Jean. Maybe Jean _was_ having another freak out with her powers. Whatever the case, it made Kitty ant to get out of here. "I have to go talk to Kurt about . . . something, in the kitchen." _That's where he'll be, right?_

"Sure," Jean said, nodding. "I'll see you later Kitty."

"See ya." Kitty said, making herself not jog away to escape the weirdness. She had heard that Senior year could really stress a person out and maybe Jean was finally starting to snap under the pressure. There were rumors that Jean was trying to get into Harvard or Yale or one of those hoity-toity schools. Once inside the mansion, Kitty phased through all the walls that were in her way of getting to the kitchen. There was almost a need to see Kurt and talk to him, making her progress to the kitchen that much faster. She finally phased out of the cabinets and saw Kurt at the table, alone, already working on some of his homework while chowing down on some of last night's left over pizza.

"Hey Fuzzy." Kitty greeted him, sitting down at the table across from him.

Kurt looked up from his Algebra homework. "Katzchen, vhat brings you here?"

"Want to go to Duncan's party with me tonight?"

Kurt was momentarily lost in his incredibility. Did Kitty just possibly ask him out? Kitty just possibly asked him out. Kitty just possibly asked him out! Kurt surreptitiously pinched his leg underneath the table. It hurt, which meant that he was not dreaming and that this was real and that Kitty was not going to turn into his kindergarten teacher and try to eat him.

"Kurt?" Kitty asked, waving a hand in front of his face.

"_Ja?_"

"Do you wanna go or not?"

Kurt schooled his features into casualness. "Sure."

* * *

A/N: Wow, sorry that took so long to get out. But you know, Harry Potter came out and I didn't feel much like working on this for a while. And then I got the first season of "Rescue Me" (Dennis Leary is a god) so I had to watch all of that. But I'm back, for now at least, I go on vacation in two weeks and a week after that I start my first week of college so don't be surprised if you don't hear from me for a while.

Sorry if the Logan part sucked. I had this whole different idea for him in this story but then I realized that he would be a little more OOC than I would like. Oh and while I'm at it, I'm sorry if the prison break from last chapter sucked too. I don't know if I mentioned this before either, but Charlie from Driveshaft is from the TV show "Lost" which is owned by JJ Abrams. So JJ owns him. Well, I think that's it for now.

Reviewers:

IvyZoe: You really feel sorry for Jean? Wow, that's cool. I'm really trying to go for a good degree of realism in this story and I guess that's a good sign that I'm doing it! I wish I could answer your questions, but that would be giving stuff away. But as Miss Frizzle always said: Keep asking questions and you'll keep getting answers. At least, I think that's what she said.

Ishy: I thought Rogue insulting him and then kissing him was cool too. Kinda brings out the love/hate aspect of their relationship. I'm glad you're really enjoying this and sorry for the absence of Romy in this chapter. It's really hard for me not to just make this whole thing a Romy and forget all the other characters. There'll be Romy next chapter, I'm pretty sure.

Nettlez: Hmm, I think might up the rating later on. But then if I up it, not as many people will see it because ff dot net tends to hide the "M" fics in my opinion.

Toxic-Touch-727: Another lesson learned! Maybe someday fan fics will replace textbooks. Or maybe just mine, cause then I would get royalties and not have to do anything. Lol. I'm glad you like the portrayals, I think it's kind of cheap when an author says 'that's the way they are, deal with it'. It almost robs the reader getting to know the character.

Sheisbeautiful-sheisnotme: thanks for the 2 reviews! Made me feel special.

The review button is your friend.

Shockgoddess


	4. The Great Escapes

_One Wild Night_  
Chapter 4  
The Great Escapes

She was getting sick in the bathroom again, he knew it. He hadn't seen her go into the bathroom, couldn't hear her in there because she was half way across the mansion, but somehow he knew. It was like he could feel where she was.

_Maybe I am working out a little too much. _Scott thought, remembering Kurt's teasing from the team's last Danger Room session. He shrugged it off, telling himself he would stop at dinner time, and continued sparring alone on the mat in the gym.

Scott lost himself in his movements, the fluidity of his fighting like a song. Every punch, kick and jump were deadly accurate and precise. He was concentrating so hard that he could almost see his imaged opponents in front of him. Sometimes they were ninjas other time they were Cylons from _Battlestar Galatica_.

He was concentrating so hard that when Jean walked in the room and said his name in the middle of a flying kick, he landed flat on his ass.

"Hey, Jean." He said with a slightly embarrassed smile from his spot on the floor.

"Nice moves." She said, offering a hand to help him up.

"Thanks." He said, taking her proffered hand and standing up. A charged silence followed in which Jean looked at the ground and Scott's eyes casually roved over her. Ever since she had started dating Duncan things had gotten weird between them. It was like they had broken up but they had never even dated. It hurt him every time he saw them together because Scott knew that if he had just opened his mouth, he would be the one with the girl. But he had played it safe--like always--and now here he was kicking his own ass in the gym after school like the pathetic boy-scout he was.

"So, what brings you down here?" Scott asked before he got too depressed.

"I heard you in here, thought I'd see what you were up to." Jean said, looking around the gym. "Fighting invisible ninjas again?"

"Yup." Scott said, grabbing his towel where he had thrown it on the floor and draping it around his neck.

Jean took a second to notice Scott's finely naked chest, noticing the little bead of sweat that was wending its way down the center of his stomach. She blinked hard and forced her eyes up onto Scott's face. "So, uh, Ducan's having that party tonight."

"Yeah." Scott said, tousling his hair a bit with his towel. "That has 'catastrophe' written all over it in bright orange letters."

"You know, I was kinda thinking the same thing too." Jean said, seeing her opportunity and seizing it. "It's been kinda tense between us and the rest of the school lately and it might be a good idea to have a couple of people from the Institute there. A safety in numbers kinda thing."

The real reason was that if she finally got up the nerve to tell Duncan what her possible state was and he went berserk, Jean wanted someone there who could protect her. While she loved Kitty to death and trusted her with her life in battle and in the Danger room, the Illinois girl just couldn't take on the star high school quarterback. Especially when he was drunk.

Scott looked as if he was about to call her out on her bullshit, but then he cracked a smile. "Nice to see those Danger Room sessions are sinking in for some people. Sure, I'll tag along."

_It always comes back to that damn Room, doesn't it?_ "Great!" Jean said, putting on her most false and saccharin of smiles. "Meet you in the garage at 8?"

"It's a date."

* * *

The smoke filled her lungs as they expanded, her dark rimmed eyes closing as they did so. Rogue held the smoke in for a few seconds before releasing it all in a rush. The following sensation could only be described as feeling herself expand, like she was now not just existing only in her body, but in the air around it too. She smiled crookedly as a familiar and comfortable numbness filled her and she knew no matter what she did now, she wouldn't feel a thing. It was quiet. Really quiet, deathly quiet. Not even the low ringing in her ears that came from listening to her music for too long and too loud could be heard. Not even the psyches were talking. It was like a vacuum.

The bathroom was a vacuum, the bathroom was a spaceship.

This caused Rogue to giggle uncontrollably, falling off the edge of the bathtub and onto her side on the floor. Her whole body shook with suppressed giggles as she held her stomach, the muscles there aching and burning with her jocularity. She was gasping for air she was laughing so hard, but she didn't care because she was floating on a cloud. She was on a cloud high, high, high above the earth, far, far away from all her problems and issues.

She couldn't breathe.

She was gonna die.

_People can't breathe in outer space!_ Her mind cried out to her.

Rogue suddenly sat up, eyes wide and taking in great lungfuls of air. Her bloodshot eyes looked around the room wildly; making sure the walls weren't closing in on her. After a few moments, she calmed down and picked up the now spent joint that sat smoldering on the counter above her.

"Damn it." She cursed, taking the little nub that was left of the joint, useless now, and flushing it down the toilet. That spaceship ride took longer than she thought. Getting up, Rogue flicked on the ventilation system, the fan sucking the air out of the bathroom and sending it down into one of the sub-basements. Rogue also sprayed some air freshener for good measure and exited the bathroom. Now that she had a clearer head about things, she could decide what to wear to Dork-can's party. That was what had prompted that little escape in the bathroom. She had been stuck between what to wear (a black vinyl corset or a dark green and revealingly lacy peasant top) and the psyches in her head had begun to argue. Kitty had wanted to wear the peasant top, but with something underneath it too and Wanda wanted to wear the corset, but Scott said she shouldn't be going out at all. But then Remy had said that she shouldn't wear anything at all which Scott took offense to, which made everyone else start taking sides and arguing back and forth about who was right or cooler or whatever. Just thinking about it made her head want to start hurting again.

Rogue closed the door to her room, leaning on it and letting out a short breath. She crossed over to her bed where the two shirts had been abandoned before she left. In the end, after much deliberation, she decided to wear a black skirt with a leather halter top. She covered her legs with some garter stockings she found in a ball in the back of her closet. There was space between where the stockings began and her skirt ended, which revealed a sexy slice of her mid thigh. She covered her upper body with a black variation on her regular green sheer top. Throwing on some boots and some smoky looking make-up, Rogue finished dressing and checked the clock. She had about a half hour to get to the Seven-Eleven that she was going to meet Remy at.

Rogue did some quick thinking. Usually at this time, Storm was almost done cleaning up the dishes from dinner, but she still had some to do, which would probably ensure Rogue from being seen by her. The Professor was in his study, hopefully, and Beast was in the lab, as always. Now if none of the newbies, or some particularly goodie-two-shoes type people, like Scott or Jean or Kitty or, hell all of them, saw her she would be fine.

"Oh my God Rogue, I like totally. . ." Kitty stopped mid-barging into the room and stared at Rogue's attire. "Wow, what's with the total Goth-out?"

God damn it.

"Thanks." Rogue said, straining to put on a smile.

"What's the occasion?" The valley girl asked.

"Nothin'," Rogue shrugged. "Can't a gal dress up if she feels lahke it?"

Kitty narrowed her eyes suspiciously at Rogue. "You wouldn't be going to that party at Duncan's house, would you?"

"Are you?" Rogue sarcastically countered, falling back to lazily stretch out on her bed.

"Yeah, but I'm like, _allowed_ to go. Unlike some people who were caught smoking in the bathroom, for the fifth time."

"Ya point?" Rogue drawled.

"My point is if you're going out, I'm not covering for you again. I'm tired of doing it."

"Ah never asked ya ta cover for me, ya took it upon yourself." Rogue said. "Ah don't care one way or another."

"You should." Kitty said, folding her arms across her chest. "This isn't like some halfway house for you to crash at between fixes. It's a place--"

"Oh God, now ya sound like Scott!" Rogue complained, theatrically rolling her eyes.

"Yeah, well, he's like, got a point, ya know!" Kitty cried over Rogue's complaints. "And not just about all that stuff about this place either. He's right about all that stuff about us bein' family and stuff."

Rogue looked at her watch and with a much put-upon sigh, got up from her bed. "Look, ya got a point here? Ah got people Ah gotta meet."

"Alright, fine." Kitty said and went over to her bed, which she sat on the edge of, picking at the end of the sleeve of her pink sweater. "I'm tired of putting up with your stuff Rogue. I'm tired of having to make up excuses about where you are and what you're doing. I'm sick of it and I'm not going to do it any more."

There was a long pause before Rogue said: "Is that all?"

Kitty looked up at her friend and blinked. "Um, yeah, I guess."

"'Kay." Rogue said with a shrug. "See ya later." She turned around and went to the balcony where she promptly dropped out of sight.

Kitty was left sitting on her bed with a slightly stunned look to her features. That wasn't at all what she was expecting. She expected Rogue to sit down and feel bad and promise that she wouldn't go out any more and that she would stop doing drugs and maybe even get some help. She expected Rogue to be a friend and open up and, at the very least, Kitty expected Rogue to be just a little bit considerate. What did she get instead? A shrug and a 'see ya later'.

_Why do I do this to myself?_ Kitty thought, digging the heels of her palms into her eyes so she wouldn't cry in frustration. She wasn't going to cry over this. If Rogue didn't care, then . . . then neither did she. If Rogue didn't care if she got herself kicked out or shot or stabbed or killed, then Kitty Pryde didn't care either.

With a sigh and a furtive glance at the opened balcony doors, Kitty got up from her bed and went to her side of the closet, pursing her lips together in thought. She took a few things out, looked at them and then put them back. She did this for quite a while, probably longer than she should have. Just as she decided that it probably wasn't a good idea to wear her baby blue top with her khaki pants (they made her butt look enormous), Kitty glanced at her alarm clock on the nightstand and saw that she only had ten minutes to finish getting ready and get down to the garage.

_Great, how am I gonna pull this one off!_ She thought, now going through her closet at a frantic pace. She honestly didn't know how guys managed to get ready in ten minutes. Finally, Kitty decided on a dark purple blouse and black pants. Then Kitty hurriedly put on some mascara and blush and then combed her hair out of its usual ponytail. She grabbed her purse and cast one last look at the open balcony door, a sinking feeling making itself known in her stomach before closing the door.

* * *

Kurt looked at his watch, his tail swishing in agitation. Why did girls take so long to get ready? Throw on a clean shirt, some new deodorant, run a comb through your hair and you were done. Ten minutes, tops, if you took your time. Though, now that Kurt thought about it, maybe he should have taken a little more time in getting ready. He wanted to make a good impression on Kitty and if she was spending so much time getting ready to the point of making them late, what did that say about how he looked? Kurt looked at his reflection in the mirror then, cursing his baggy khaki pants and dark blue shirt. _Ach, I should have at least showered or put some gel in my hair._ He scolded himself as someone thudded down the steps quickly. He looked away from the mirror and saw Kitty standing next to him in a very nice top and pants. His eyes raked her up and down for a second or two before saying,

"You look nice _Katzchen_."

"Ugh, this stuff?" Kitty responded with a sound of disgust and a roll of her eyes. "Please, you're, like, just being nice."

"_Nein_, really, you look _sehr gut_."

"You really think so?" Kitty asked, examining her backside in the hall mirror that Kurt had just been using.

"_Ja_, I really do." Kurt nodded.

Kitty smiled and maybe blushed a little bit before wrapping her arm around Kurt's in a friendly manner and starting off down the hall. "C'mon, let's go before Scott leaves without us."

Scott sighed impatiently and checked his watch for the fifth time. Somehow they all managed to be late this time. Did anything he ever said about being on time for stuff or anything else of that kind of importance sink into their heads? Probably not. If he was honest with himself, he couldn't blame them. Most times he made those speeches at an ungodly hour in the morning and if they were so tired that they couldn't listen then he was so tired that most times he couldn't remember what he said. Upon hearing the door from the house to the garage open, Scott looked up and saw Jean standing in the door way. For a moment she looked like an angel standing there, with the light from behind her making her look as if she was glowing. But then she moved and the vision was gone.

"I thought you would have worn a dress." Scott said by way of greeting.

"You look nice too." Jean said with a small smile. "It's a party, not a date."

Scott opened the car door for her, taking the opportunity to stealthily look down the generous scoop cut of her green shirt. He used the walk around the car to the driver's side to fight the smirk off of his face and sat in the driver's seat. He hit the garage door opener and from then on it was pure quiet, broken only by Scott drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. Just as Scott was about to open his mouth to say something, Kurt and Kitty bounded into the room, Kitty already chattering on about clothes and Scott promptly shut his mouth.

"Ready to go?" Scott asked the duo as they clamored into the back seat. A "_ja_" and a "yeah" were his responses before he started the car and pulled out of the garage. None of them knew that when they came back, everything will have changed.

* * *

A/n: Geez, over two months it has been, has it not? College is crazy; as I'm sure some of you know. I know this is gonna seem kinda old, but my thoughts and prayers go out to the victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Bit of good news that I have heard: There will be a Mardi Gras in February! So that's a good sign, I guess. But enough bad stuff, onto reviews! (I'm thinking of putting them back at the top again, what do you all think?)

**Reviews:**

_IvyZoe_: Nope, Logan's not at Xavier's, he still like a drifter I guess. Just a guy who likes to drink, fight in bars and spend some time with some lovely ladies. Kinda like Remy, only not as man-whore-ish as Remy can be sometimes. Party shall be coming up soon, if not next chapter, so stay tuned to find out what happens!

_Ishy_: Sorry about the lack of Romy in this chapter too! But definitely starting out with them next chapter and then the sequel to this will be Romy-centric too, so hopefully that makes up for it. Your feeling is right and definitely some interesting stuff is going to go down.

_Starrydreamz_: thanks for the love, sorry for the delay!

_MidniteAngelGoth_: Thanks for the love! And you know how to spell effing too! Yay!

Go Eagles  
Shockgoddess


	5. Plastic Cups

_One Wild Night_  
Chapter 5  
Plastic Cups

Remy sighed slowly, releasing the pent up smoke in his lungs as he did so. His red and black eyes darted over to the clerk inside the 7-11 convenience store, making sure she wasn't calling the cops on him for loitering again. Whoever thought up making loitering a crime was the dumbest person on the face of the earth in Remy's opinion. It was a free country, he was allowed to stand where ever the hell he goddamned pleased. Shouldn't matter that 9 times out of 10 he was loitering because he was casing the joint. In his opinion, the clerk inside should be more worried about the drug deal that was going down not even ten yards from him, that had more potential to turn ugly than just him standing there. Or even the hooker that Remy spied eyeing him up out of the corner of his eye. He looked over at her, deciding to entertain him self while waiting for Rogue. He feigned casual interest as he looked over at her again and she smiled in a predatory way.

_Can tell she's a feisty one. _Remy thought as the streetwalking girl casually struck a pose so that he could get a nice view of the top of her inner thigh.

"Remy!"

"_Merde!_" Remy started and in the process, dropped his cigarette. "Damn it, _chere_, ya made me drop m'cigarette. Those t'ings are getting' expensive y'know."

"That wasn't the only thing ya were about ta drop just now if Ah hadn't come along."

"Hey, now dat ain't--" Remy, who had finally stopped stomping out his cigarette, finally looked up at Rogue and felt his jaw drop. He tried to finish his sentence, he really did but he couldn't get his brain to send the signals to his mouth. It was too busy gawking at Rogue, trying to process the unbelievable image before him.

"You're lettin' the flies in, sugh." Rogue said, shutting Remy's mouth for him.

Remy blinked, let his eyes almost indecently rove over her one more time and tried to speak again. This time he was successful. "How in de hell do you manage t' do that?"

"Do what?" Rogue asked as they walked towards Remy's motorcycle, which was parked around the corner of the store.

"Manage t' expose everyt'in' and cover it up at de same time?"

"Lots of practice." She smiled coyly. When they reached the bike, she leaned against it in a very provocative way with an unknowing look on her face.

Remy stood directly in for of her so that their knees touched, looked at her and folded his arms across his muscled chest. "Yo' bein' mean."

"Ah'm bein' mean? Who's tha one wearin' tha muscle shirt, huh?" She asked, poking him in one pectoral.

Remy rolled his eyes and swatted her hand away. "Get on de bike." He said while swinging his own leg over the metal steed. Once Rogue was situated on the back and had a helmet on, they roared out of the parking lot, headed toward destiny.

The ride to Duncan's house was not a very pleasant one for Rogue. It was the fall and the weather was cool and most of Rogue's outfit was thin and not very good at holding in heat. She tried not to hug too close to Remy lest she give him any ideas but the more she tried not to stay close to Remy, the faster they seemed to go, making Rogue colder. She swore he was doing it on purpose. They pulled into Duncan's driveway and parked behind Scott's car and Rogue gave him a smack in the arm for good measure.

"What was dat fo'?" Remy asked as they walked up to the house.

"For drivin' too fast." Rogue said.

* * *

Scott was ready to kill every last one of them. Between fighting for control of the radio and complaints about elbow room and leg room and whatever-else-room it was amazing Scott hadn't ran a red light and killed them all. Jean seemed to be back to her normal self, debating with Kitty about stiletto heels or something like that while Kurt was goofing off and using an obscenely high voice to interject odd statements here and there. Thankfully they reached Duncan's house shortly and everyone piled out. Scott stayed behind a few seconds and pried his hands off of the steering wheel.

"Wow, somebody's stressed." Jean said.

Scott smiled weakly "Inane chatter about shoes will do that to a guy." He got out of the car and walked around to the other side where Jean was and offered her his arm. "Ready?" he asked Jean

_As ready as I'll ever be._ "Yeah." She replied, hoping Scott would notice how nervous she had suddenly become.

Before they were even at the door, music could be heard thumping through the house at an outrageously loud level. The door was open and they walked in and the usual chaos of an unsupervised house party greeted them. Every visible spot was crowed with people, be they dancing, talking or making out where ever they could. The place was already trashed with empty plastic cups and paper plates and other disposable utensils littering the place. Not to mention the half eaten food. A couple ran by them with mischievous grins on their faces and they disappeared up stairs as something made of glass shattered.

"Wow. Fun." Scott commented dryly.

"What?" Jean shouted over the blaring music.

"Never mind." He shouted back.

"Wanna go get a drink?"

"Sure." _I'm going to need it to keep my sanity in this mess._ Scott thought as Jean took his hand and led him off to the nearest keg.

Jean expertly wove her way through the mass of partying people, noting that the fire marshal would probably have a field day with the number of violations. She spotted a group of guys gathered around something stout and metal and Jean knew she had found a keg. Just before she neared them, she saw a pair of feet go up into the air and chants of "chug-chug-chug!" started.

"Wait, wait, wait!" Jean shouted as she forced her way through the last few people. "I need two drinks before you guys do that."

She heard the beginnings of grumblings start from the guys but then the kid who was upside down over the keg said "It's alright guys, she's cool."

"Pete?" Jean asked as one of the guys helping to support him got two plastic cups.

"Hey Jeannie, glad you could make it." Pete said, his face slowly getting redder and redder from being upside down. "Hey Summers, didn't think you'd be here."

Scott just lifted his head in acknowledgement and half shrugged. "Didn't think I'd ever see you up upside down over a keg."

Pete just shrugged as best he could in his position. "Yeah, well. . ." No one heard the rest of Pete's sentence because Jean's drinks were shoved into her hands and the chorus of shouting started up again. The tap was put into Pete's mouth and opened up. Pete began gulping down alcohol furiously. More than a minute passed and Jean was impressed that Pete was able to last that long.

"C'mon, Jean, let's go somewhere else." She heard Scott's voice in her ear.

"Why?"

He didn't answer, instead just placed his hand on her arm and nodded his head in the opposite direction of Pete's keg stand. Jean took one last look at Pete and then followed Scott. They ended up in the living room where Jean noticed a cute pink bra hanging off of the ceiling fan as she took a drink.

"Jean, are you even listening to me?"

"Huh?"

"I said," Scott started to repeat himself. "Why did Taryn just tell me you're pregnant?"

* * *

As soon as the car stopped, Kurt hopped out of the back of Scott's cramped car, eager to stretch his legs. When he was done stretching he saw that Kitty had also gotten out of the car and was standing before him with a waiting look on her face.

"C'mon, let's go Fuzzy!" she shouted as she took his hand and raced up to the house. They were greeted with much the same scene as Scott and Jean, the house already trashed and music turned up loud.

"Like, oh my God, this is so great!" Kitty shouted.

"_Ja_." Kurt responded, not sure about what was so great about a dirty house and loud music. But then again, this was his first American "house party" so maybe that's what they did over here.

He was jerked forward by Kitty's hold on his hand, dragging him through the house towards the music that was now getting louder and louder. On the short trip there, he was exposed to more corrupting images than he had been in all his years on this earth. They stopped moving and Kitty seemed to pick the spot where the music would be the loudest.

"Let's dance!" she shouted at him and began boogying down. Kurt however was hesitant. People were way to close to him for his comfort and he did not want to find out what would happen if someone found out that he was mysteriously fuzzy.

"I don't know, Katzchen . . ."

"Oh, like come _on_ Kurt!" She cried and then leaned in close to whisper something to him. "Everyone is either too drunk or too stoned to realize that you're fuzzy if they touched you."

Kurt thought for a second, looking around the room. A faint haze of smoke hung above them and the smell of marijuana and tobacco mixed with the scent of food and people. He thought he saw the top of Jean's red head as his eyes scanned the crowd and he decided that Kitty was probably right. He began dancing in earnest and was sorry that he had not started sooner as Kitty was somewhat of a dirty dancer in his opinion. Not that he minded at all, not one bit in fact. Songs faded in and out and into one another and soon all he knew was the beat of the music and the sight of Kitty and the sense of everyone else doing the same thing around them. He'd never felt so normal in his life.

"Wow, Kurt, I never knew you could dance so well."

Kurt turned to the sound of the voice and saw Amanda standing there. _Oh no!_ was the singular thought that rang in Kurt's head as he tried with swallow with his suddenly too dry mouth and smile weakly. He had never really properly broke things off with Amanda, just going out with her because Kitty was taken by Lance at the time. But once that fell apart he just stopped seeing Amanda and spent more time hanging around the mansion and, by extension, Kitty.

"Oh hey, Amanda." He managed to say. "I didn't know you'd be here."

"Are you kidding me, it's like the biggest party of the year here!" she smiled brilliantly.

"_Ja_, looks like it." He replied and felt a tap on his shoulder.

"Hey Fuzzy, I'm gonna go get some punch, ya want some?" Kitty asked and Kurt couldn't help but notice how the top of her brow shone with slight sweat and her cheeks were lightly flushed.

"_Jawohl!_" Kurt exclaimed, pouncing on the excuse to get away. "I'll go vith you."

"That's ok, I'll--" Kitty started but was already being pushed along by Kurt and soon lost Amanda in the crowd. She tried to squirm out of his grasp but found that Kurt's grip was surprisingly strong.

"Kurt, like, what the hell!" she said when they arrived at the punch table.

"Sorry _Katzchen_" Kurt said as he began ladling punch into two cups. "It's just, things are . . ._ vierd_ between me und Amanda."

"Like, how come?" Kitty asked as he handed her one of the cups.

_Because Lance dumped you und I saw mein chance._ Kurt thought as he stalled for an excuse. He couldn't tell her the truth because then she'd think he was some kind of loser and would never even look at him again.

". . . Zere vas another person." The words came out of Kurt's mouth before he even knew he formed them. He had hoped he could just string together a bunch of different sounds and it would come out as something just as ambiguous as his 'weird' statement. But nope, Kurt Wagner would not have that kind of luck tonight.

"She _cheated_ on you?" Kitty exclaimed, incredulous.

"_Was!_" _Did I say zat?_ "Um, _Ja,_" Kurt recovered. "Vhat a bitch, huh?"

"Like, I'll say." Kitty responded and motioned for Kurt to refill her cup.

"Thirsty?" Kurt commented with a raised brow as he began refilling her cup.

"Yeah, dancing sure is a work out. I can only imagine what it's like for you, all covered in fur." Kitty was handed her cup and drained its contents again. When she was done, she coughed and sputtered a bit, swaying and quickly grabbing onto the table for support.

"Whoa. . ." she murmured and Kurt helped her to stand upright again.

"Are you alright?" Kurt asked.

"Yeah, I like think so." Kitty replied, putting a hand to her head. "Man, what's in this stuff?"

Kurt brought his own plastic cup, untouched, to his face and took a whiff. "Kitty, zis is spiked."

"_No_." Kitty said obviously, giggling.

_Mein Gott, vhat have I done?_

_

* * *

_

Jean coughed into her drink, knowing what it felt like to have beer shoot out her nose. "What?" she said, hand to her face to cover the liquid streaming out of her nose. Scott handed her a tissue and she mumbled a 'thank you' before wiping her face. She coughed a few more times before she regained her composure and asked again: "What did you say?"

Scott rolled his eyes, annoyed that he had to repeat himself, again. "Taryn just told me that you're pregnant."

"Shh! Shut up!" Jean put a hand over his mouth. "Do you really want there to be a rumor about that?" On the inside Jean was throwing a total panic attack. How did Taryn find out? She hadn't told anyone anything about whatever was going on between her and Duncan. What went on between them or whatever they got up to was no body's business but Jean's and Duncan's.

Scott removed Jean's hand from his mouth. "Jean, I just--"

She cut him off with a gesture of her hand. "Obviously Taryn is trying to pick a fight. And since when did you put any stock into anything she says?"

She didn't hear Scott's response because she was too distracted by a thought bubbling to the surface of her mind. _Unless Duncan. . . ._

Distractedly, Jean put her drink into Scott hands. "Excuse me, I have to go . . . _talk_ to Duncan."

With the murderous look on Jean's face, Scott decided two things: stay out of Jean's way and that he was very happy that he was not Duncan.

Jean made her way through the party, looking for any sign of blonde hair and a letter jacket. When she got her hands on him. . . . She had told him what went on between them was private, that he was not to go bragging to his buddies or telling stories or anything. She should have known better; honestly, what was she expecting from him? For him to change, for him to keep his promises like Scott had? Jean stopped in her tracks, feeling like she had been hit in the gut. Was that what she had wanted from Duncan all along? A crash and the sound of splintering wood broke Jean's reverie. In front of her was Rogue on top of some girl, who was on top of what was a coffee table. Rogue was straddling the girl's waist, yelling incoherently about something and beating the living daylights out of the girl.

* * *

**A/N**: It's over, finally over! Yay! The semester's done! A month off:dances: Ok, I'm done. Sorry it's taken so long but college is a bitch, as I'm sure you've all probably heard from other college fic writers. I should really call this fic "Jungle land" because this fic reminds me a lot of the song by Bruce Springsteen. They're making me get rid of review responses, what the hell is that? I guess this will be the last time you'll all get to hear (read?) my little spiel down here, since I don't want my story to be deleted for something stupid.

**Review Responses**: (last one, sniff.)

**IvyZoe:** Wish everyone else understood that? You haven't been hitting the wacky tabacky, have you? Lol ;). Logan _is_ in fact closer to everyone else's age; at least he acts that way. He has a feeling that he's older than he really is, but acts around his early twenty's, which puts him closest to Remy's age which is about 19, almost 20. And I'm definitely not going to give up on this because I spent about two weeks in November writing a "scene" for the Romy-centric sequel to this. Funny how a "scene" turned into 20+ pages.

**Ishy**: I hope you did well on those mid-terms that were like two months ago! Man, I've gotta find more time to update. Your right, last chapter (and this chapter too) are a prelude to worse things to come. Those worse things should start next chapter and will definitely be here the chapter after that (I hope). I'll try and be faster with the next chapter :).

**Sakura5star:** Yes, Logan and Remy are living together, but not in a slashy way. They're just roomies in the apartment above Hank's bar. But if you want to add slashy undertones to this in your head to make things more interesting, go ahead. .

**TheSinisterBra**: I love your penname, 'tis funny. Wow, I'm flattered that you love the way I've made the characters in this story. Everything you said is what I was going for, all the fakeness and issues and everything. I'm just really flattered by your review, so thank you!

**me**: And another flattering review! I'm so glad that I'm making these characters seem "real" to everybody or as about as real as comic book characters can get. You're another one who's spot on with everything I was going for. I wanted this to be perceived as real and messed up with issues and contradictions and you're another one who got that! Thank you!

**Ksmufer: **Thanks, I seem to be making people like characters they usually don't like a lot in this fic.

**Bluebamfette**: Thanks, I think there is going to be more Kurtty in this, so stay tuned!

Merry ChristmaHanuKwanzzikah!

SG


	6. Tangled

_One Wild Night_

Chapter 6

Accidental Tragedy

The end of his cigar glowed as Logan took another drag off of it. He was the only person his age that he knew of that smoked cigars regularly. Cigars were usually for old men and poker nights, but there was just something in him that made him smoke them like some fifty year old bum. Maybe it was that constant sneaking suspicion that he really was some fifty year old bum with amnesia problems. Logan shook those thoughts off, labeling them as ridiculous. After all, what fifty-year-old who smoked cigars constantly looked as good as he did?

He stuffed his hands in his jacket pockets as he walked down the street, even though it wasn't anywhere near cold out. Bayville was warming up, the spring slowly sliding into early summer. Soon it'd be hell to stay in that apartment above Harry's with no air conditioning. He'd been telling that dirty Cajun to fix it, but did he? No. Goddamned lazy kid. Logan knew cars and anything with an internal combustion engine in it and that was it. He knew if he were to take a whack at fixing the damn thing, he'd probably get Freon all over the place and then they'd really be screwed. Because Harry would kick them out finally and despite how much he grumbled about it, the Cajun was a good roommate; always managed to come up with his half of the rent . . . somehow.

Logan stopped at the corner, leaning against the traffic pole and waiting for the light to change so traffic would stop. He looked like some punk juvenile delinquent from the days of greasers and socs in his jeans, white tee and leather jacket. He took a final drag on his cigar and threw the stub away into the street. The light changed and Logan crossed the street, headed for the convenience store a few doors down that sold beer. People were always in and out of the place, it sold nearly every damn thing made under the sun. Candy, beer, toilet paper, cereal, whatever, the damn place sold it.

Logan entered the store, the bell placed above the door tinkling as he did so. The fluorescent lights shown everything and everyone in the worst light, almost as if it ripped away the layers people put up everyday and displayed just how harsh life was on everyone. With a sigh that came out more like a soft growl, Logan went towards the glass refrigerators that held cases of frosty beer in their chilled compartments. He'd only been browsing for a few moments when his senses picked up on something happening at the front of the store, which he had his back faced to. Two heartbeats entered the store, racing a mile a minute. They moved around to the cashier's desk and at the sound of something begin taken out from under a jacket, the cashier's heart rate shot up as well. She was behind bulletproof glass, the store having been robbed a few times before, so whatever was going on at the front of the store served only to pique his interest more. He turned his head to the side, able to peek at what was going on out of the corner of one eye.

"Give me the money, bitch."

"Who the hell --"

There was the rustle of fabric, the sounds of something being taken out of a jacket or pocket.

"Ohmigod, please don't hurt me!"

"Give us the money, _now_."

It was all whispers, but Logan heard everything as if it was said right next to him. The store was being held up. What was worse, the girl behind the counter couldn't be more than 18. His forearms tingled with the want to release his claws. As he slowly turned around, there were two thwacks against the glass before it shattered.

"No please–!" She's cut off by two stabs of a knife to the chest while the other grabbed as much money as he could from the open register. Damn, she was pretty too, was probably gonna go somewhere with her life.

"Quick, let's get out of here before the cops come!" One said to the other, holding fistfuls of cash in his bloody hands.

Logan was in front of the door, blocking their way out. He hadn't even known he moved. "Just where do ya think yer goin' bub?"

The music was loud, just as it had been for everyone else as Rogue and Remy arrived and the house was still just as trashed. There was the sound of glass breaking and two male voices yelling and knocking into things somewhere in a different part of the house, upstairs.

"Sounds like a hell of a party, _non_?" Remy said as they mingled among the different partying teens.

"Yeah" Rogue agreed, secretly keeping an eye out for a particular person.

"Wanna see if we can scare up some shots?"

"Sure."

It didn't take long to find some shot glasses and a couple of bottles of tequila and vodka. They set up camp out side at one of the tables by the pool. At first Rogue just watched Remy take on people, not wanted to be too blasted too soon; she needed to stay sharp for just a little bit to keep from being caught by Scott or anyone else. After she was here for a while, she wouldn't care. Remy kept knocking them down, watching as the kids that took him on surrendered or ran off to go throw up some where. Rogue started taking bets on the matches and joining in with Remy's victory beers. She had no idea how he was managing to keep it all down or not even start acting a little drunk.

"Cajun, Ah think you're cheatin'." She whispered in his ear as she poured him another shot-ful of vodka in the middle of a match with someone she vaguely recognized as one of Scott's friends.

"Aw _chere_, you insult an honest man like me." He quietly replied, adding on a wink.

"Then how come ya ain't fallin' over drunk?"

"Magic." He shortly replied before downing yet another shot.

"Ah don't believe ya. What's your secret?"

"Uh-uh, _chere._" He said warningly, waving a finger at her. "A magician never reveals his secrets." He downed another shot. "Though, dere's plenty other t'ings Remy can 'reveal' t' ya later if ya want him to."

Rogue gave him a shove as Remy's contender paled suddenly before barely making it over to the pool to hurl. She spared a look of disgust before returning to their conversation. "You're a pig, Remy LeBeau."

"If I be a pig, den you be a skunk, Rogue." He said, pointing to the white stripes in her hair. He realized his error a second later. He didn't have time to apologize before she shoved him harder, knocking him off of his chair.

"Fuck you!" Rogue shouted at him, storming off back towards the house. She wasn't really insulted by Remy's comment; people had been calling her 'skunk-head' and the like for ages now. Neither was she really going to storm off, at least, that was part of her plan. But as she stomped back towards the house, she saw the person she was looking for, Lance. She needed to get a fix and Lance would probably give her something cheap, if he was in the mood.

"_Chere,_ come back! Y'know I didn't mean it!" she heard Remy call after her. She could tell he was following her, was probably going to apologize up and down when he caught her. Shit, she didn't want him to see her buying some sticks. Not even looking over her shoulder, she flipped him off and set a faster pace for herself, trying to catch up to Lance.

After walking around in intricate paths through various parts of Duncan's house, Rogue finally lost Remy. She had also lost Lance too. _Fuck._ It took another ten minutes before she caught him near the front of the house, making another deal with someone else. She waited until they were finished before approaching Lance.

"Don't'cha have ta meet your probation officer tonight?" she said by way of greeting.

Lance smiled wickedly. "Not tonight." He continued counting his money. "So you just makin' conversation or do ya need something?"

"Ah left mah sticks at home, can ya cover me for the party?"

"Ya got the money?"

"Sure" Rogue said, pulling a small wad of crumpled up bills out of her bra.

"Alright then." Lance started fishing around in his pockets for a couple of wet sticks.

"Know what?" Rogue said suddenly. "Ya got any coke?"

"Sure, but it'll cost ya."

"Aw c'mon Lance, Ah thought we were friends." Rogue whined, giving him a cute pout.

"Alright fine, but only because it gives me the creeps when you try to act cute." Lance relented, pulling a little baggie of white powder out of a pocket in his vest.

Rogue smiled brilliantly. "Thank ya sugah."

They traded off, cash for coke, and Rogue went off to search for an empty bathroom. She found one in short time and locked herself inside of it, turning on the vent to get rid of the smell of the last person that had been in there. She dumped the baggie's contents out onto the smooth marble around the sink. She then pulled out a razor blade that was hidden behind one of the straps of her boot and divided up the white powder. Her mouth was almost watering with anticipation, eager to recall that high from the night before with Risty. When it was ready Rogue pinched one nostril shut and put her face close to the sink counter, taking a deep breath and inhaling the white powder. She did three lines before the high hit her like a freight train.

"Oh god damn. . !" she managed to choke out.

She was able to catch a glance of herself in the mirror, mouth wide and eyes glazed over before her eyes rolled back into her head and she collapsed on the floor.

"Oh don't look so horrified Kurt. I've like, had alcohol before." Kitty said at the look on Kurt's face.

"When?"

"At my bat mitzvah. My cousin Johnny snuck in some booze towards the end of the party and I figured what the hell, I'm an adult now." Kitty said, spreading her arms wide. "One drink lead to another and I went home just as drunk as my mom and dad."

Kurt would have laughed at the mental picture of a drunken Kitty, but was too concerned with the fact that he got her drunk here and now, when they had to return to the Institute later. _Ororo is going to have mein head_, he thought to himself.

"Oh stop worrying Kurt." Kitty's voice interjected into his thoughts. "Really, I'm not even all that drunk, just a little tipsy."

"_Ja_, but vhat about Ororo?"

"I'm pretty sure she's not going to be standing at the door and inspecting everyone when we come back." Kitty said. Her face then lit up with what Kurt liked to call her "gossip face". "So, did you ever find out who Amanda cheated on you with?"

"Uh. . ." It took Kurt a second to remember the lie he had told her. "I'd rather not talk about it."

"She didn't leave you for another woman, did she?"

Kurt was too confused at how Kitty was gathering all this information form him when he hadn't even said a further word on the matter other than 'there was another person'. He never even mentioned anything about the sex of this fake person.

"Ohmigod, she did, didn't she!" Kitty gasped, covering her agape mouth with a hand. "I knew it!"

"_Was!_" Kurt yelped, scared that this was going to get out of control and somehow come back to Amanda. "Kitty, vait, slow down a minute. You didn't let me finish before. Zhere vas another voman but--"

"Ohmigod, was that Rogue?"

"_Was_?" Kurt asked, looking around.

"Ohmigod, it _was!_" Kitty was a growl of annoyance. "I am like _so_ gonna kill her!"

Kitty started to storm off but was stopped by Kurt's hand on her arm. He was seizing his opportunity to keep Kitty distracted from the Amanda issue. "Vait a minute, _Katzchen_. Are you sure it's Rogue and not just some other Goth?"

"Okay first off, what other Goth is there in Bayville besides those little punk nine-year-olds who hang out at the arcade? And two, I'd recognize the Rocky Horror Picture knockoff outfit she was wearing anywhere!"

She was about to walk off again, and again she was halted by Kurt's grip on her arm. "Ok, so it is Rogue. Shouldn't you know by now not to go und bitch her out?"

"I don't care! I'm like so tired of her crap, you know?"

Kurt made a suspicious face; clearly something was going on between the two of them that he did not know about. "Vhat's going on here Kitty? Vhy are you so upset about zhis?"

Kitty sighed, closing her eyes for a brief moment. For a moment she was going to tell him, tell him everything. That his half sister was a drug addict, that she snuck out most nights, that she'd been arrested more times than just the times everyone knew about and that happened because she was hanging around this older guy, Renny or whatever his name was, who would bail her out sometimes. She was going to tell him that she was scared for Rogue; scared she was going to kill herself or get herself kicked out and die on the street alone. But she didn't because in the end her loyalty to Rogue won out. When she first caught Rogue smoking, Rogue had made her promise not to tell anyone. Rogue made her keep that same promise after she started sneaking out and after Kitty found pot in Rogue's school bag. It was that promise that bound Kitty to silence, even if it hurt Rogue more.

"It's between me and her." Kitty finally said. "Maybe I'll tell ya about it sometime but for right now, I need to go find her myself."

Kurt let go of her arm. "Okay . . . just yell if you need help or anyzhing."

Kitty smiled. "I'll do that."

She walked away form Kurt, her eyes scanning the crowd. When she walked through the kitchen, she bumped into a tall dark and handsome guy that she vaguely recognized and not more than five minutes later recognized as that guy Rogue was hanging around with. She turned back to ask him if he'd seen Rogue but he was already gone. Continuing on her search, she caught a flash of auburn and white and followed it. She lost her after a few fleeting moments, but found someone much more interesting instead: Lance.

"Lance, what are you doing here?"

Lance looked up from un-crumpling crumpled money. "Hey Pretty Kitty" he smiled. "What's a girl like you doin' here?"

"Shut up Lance." Kitty spat at him. Somewhere inside of her still lingered hurt from their break up but nothing more. "All I wanna know is if you seen Rogue."

"Can't say that I have." He shrugged and started counting out his money. "Can't say that I haven't either."

Kitty didn't know what was wrong with her, but she felt very angry at Lance right then. Maybe it was the alcohol or maybe it was months of frustration finally reaching the breaking point, but whatever it was, it fueled her to shove the lanky youth up against a wall and hold him here, a wad of his t-shirt clenched in her fist.

"Cut the bullshit Lance, I know you're her dealer and I know that's Rogue's money right there. _Where is she_?"

Lance, instead of being scared as she had expected, just smiled in a lukewarm way that made the hair on the back of Kitty's neck stand up. "Look, I don't know where she is. I gave her a baggie and she went off somewhere. I'm not her keeper, what more do ya want from me?"

"I want you to stop dealing to her. Cut her off, whatever, just stop giving her stuff."

Before she knew it, Lance had flipped their positions and Kitty was up against the wall, Lance's grip surprisingly tight on her arms. He smiled ferally. "If I do something for you, you gotta do something for me in return, Pretty Kitty."

His lips were on her neck and moving higher, the squirming and pulling away Kitty was doing did nothing to deter Lance. She tried to kick him in the groin, but he was crushing her to the wall too hard, it was getting difficult to breathe and became even more difficult when his lips mashed to hers. The smell of cigarettes and marijuana and just plain filth overwhelmed her nose and made her want to gag. She screamed but it was muffled by Lance's mouth over hers.

"Get off of her!"

Rogue's eyes opened slowly only to squint close again at the harsh bathroom light just above her. She sat up, knowing that she had only been out for only a minute or two. The high was still there, she still felt wonderful.

There was banging on the door, someone was yelling at her to get out of the bathroom already.

"Hold yer goddamned horses!" Rogue shouted at the door.

"Hurry up you fuckin' bitch, I gotta fuckin' piss!" the person, a girl, on the other side shouted back.

"Fuck off, cunt!" Rogue shot back, checking to make sure there was no coke left by the sink.

"Get out here you fucking whore so I can rip your goddamn face off!"

Rogue kicked open the door and tackled the girl, slamming her into a wall. "Bitch!" she shouted at her.

"Whore!" the other shouted at her, grabbing a handful of Rogue's hair and pulling hard.

Rogue countered by hitting her square in the face, her nose exploding in a spray of blood. The other girl screamed and pulled away from Rogue, cupping her hands over her bleeding nose. Rogue stood there, breathing hard and glaring daggers and for a moment it looked as if the fight was over. But the other girl, a blonde skinny, Paris Hilton wannabe, gingerly wiped her nose and with a shriek, ran at Rogue and jumped on her, taking them both down to the ground.

Rogue managed to get herself on top and stood. "C'mon bitch, stand up and fight me!"

Paris Hilton wannabe stood and went for Rogue throat, Rogue stopping her with a firm grip on the other girl's upper arms. They were pushing against each other with equal force, the only thing happening was that the other girl nails were scratching at Rogue's chin and cheeks. They moved through the kitchen like this, shouting stream after stream of expletives and threats until they reached the edge of the kitchen, just before the living room and Rogue was able to throw the other girl off of her. The girl went flying into the living room and crashed down on top of a coffee table. Normally Rogue would have let things end there but Rogue was not in her right mind. The drugs in her system incensed her further, making her jump on top of the other, holding her down and hitting her over and over. Had Rogue looked up she would have seen Jean's shocked face as one of the first in a gathering crowd.

It was at this point that Remy finally found Rogue. He had heard the yelling from up stairs were he had just about to begin a poker game with a few other guys. Deciding that checking out a good cat fight would have been better, he abandoned the game and followed the sounds of yelling voices. He went past a room where two guys were fighting each other and a girl in a purple shirt was yelling at them to stop it, but that wasn't what he was looking for. Seconds later he watched Rogue throw a girl into another room and them proceed to leap on her.

"_Merde_!" he cursed, pushing his way through the forming crowd. He noticed a tall red head trying to break up the fight, but not wanting to get hurt herself, wasn't really doing anything other than pushing the fighting girls' shoulders. Remy however, knew how to break up a cat fight. One just had to reach in, just grab something, and pull. Which is what he did. He grabbed Rogue around the waist and pulled her off the other girl, who had gone limp and passed out probably when Rogue threw her onto the coffee table. She was screaming and yelling and kicking and flailing her arms all about, claiming that she wasn't done yet. Remy managed to get her away with out too much incident, but she did manage to kick him in the shin pretty hard.

"Quit fussin' _chere_!" He bit out, shin throbbing with pain. He never realized Rogue was such a strong girl. She was moving around so much that he could barely keep a hold on her with his arms around her waist. At she had stopped yelling.

Remy set her down when they got to a relatively unpopulated part of the house. It was decorated somewhat nicely, probably the room that Duncan's mom entertained/ showed off to guests in.

"What de hell is de matter with you?" Remy asked Rogue, holding her by the shoulders.

"She started it!" the southern Goth girl started, looking ready to jump into a tirade defending herself.

"You sound like a friggin' five year old, y'know dat?" he said, letting go of her. "Ya could've killed her." Remy put a hand through his long, for a guy at least, hair as a sign of agitation. _Wait a minute, why am I bein' an adult about dis? Rogue's always getting' int' scraps, why's dis any different?_

"Remy?"

As soon as he turned to face her again, her lips were on his. His hands had automatically gone to her hips and they tightened, bracing for the rumored shock of her powers, the thing he had been claiming all along that he didn't care about, that he could supposedly take.

It never came.

Just the soft feel of her lips moving against his, the smell of her perfume and shampoo mixing with just the barest tinge of sweat and something that was just her. When he realized there was no pull coming, no blackout, no fainting, he pulled her flush against his body before pushing her to the wall, kissing her for all he was worth. Her gasp when he moved to her neck delighted him, made him want more.

The next thing Remy realized was that they had made it to a bedroom and his shirt was off. Rogue's was too. He took one pink peak of her breast into his mouth, her hands tightening in his hair almost to the point of pain. He kissed his way back up to her neck, taking time to linger at one particular spot that made her arch and moan beneath him. Remy pulled back and admired the mark on her pale, once untouched skin. He took a kind of pride in it, knowing that he was the only person to ever do that to Rogue. He 'mmm'ed in pleasure as Rogue slowly dragged her nails up his back, raising tingling gooseflesh. He buried his face in her neck again as she repeated her actions, much to his delight.

"Remy?"

He pulled back, looking down at her beautifully flushed form. "_Oui, chere_?"

"Now."

Remy blinked, knowing exactly what she was talking about. "You sho'?"

Rogue nodded. "Ah'm sure."

The two punks stood in front of him, momentarily shocked that there was another person in the store.

"Get out of our way old man, this ain't your business." The shorter of the two stepped forward, holding a knife out at him.

"I'm makin' it my business." It was then that his claws unsheathed, popping out with a dangerous 'snikt'.

"What're you? Some kinda mute freak?" The taller one scoffed, beckoning the other for the knife. The knife was handed to him and he rolled his neck, cracking it once. "Doesn't matter. I can still take your ass out.

Both men came at him then. During the fight, one of them managed to jump onto his back. Logan flipped him over his shoulder, slamming his body down onto the cashier's counter, a shard of glass that hadn't broken and sticking straight up going right through his back and coming out of his chest red with blood. The knife got lost in the fight, getting tossed to another part of the store or out a window or something. Before he knew it, the fight was over. One impaled on a large piece of glass the other with three evenly spaced, evenly sized and _very_ deep stab wounds in his gut. Blood was all over the place, spattered on the walls and merchandise, puddled on the floor. Logan's nose was broken. He set it with a crack and a grunt, feeling it heal up already. He turned around to leave the store before the cops came and thought he tried to rob the store.

Too late.

Logan turned into the light of a bright spotlight and heard a voice boom over a loud speaker. "Bayville Police Department. Don't move."

_Shit._

A/N: What? Rogue can touch? Most of this took place while Scott and Jean were talking and Jean was looking for Duncan? What? There's a possibility that more than one character will die before this is over? Did I say that out loud? I still have two weeks of break left, so the more you review, the faster I get stuff out. And for the anonymous reviewers, you can still review; it'll give me a reason to break the new review response rules!

Shockgoddess


	7. Heartbreak Park

_One Wild Night_  
Chapter 7  
Heartbreak Park

Out of the blue from the crowd came a tall and very handsome guy. He simply grabbed Rogue around the waist and hauled her up off the unknown girl and walked off with her somewhere. Like she was a piece of merchandise sitting on a shelf, waiting to be taken by a shopper. Jean stood, looking slightly confused while Scott looked down right angry.

"That's not who I think it was." Scott said, snapping Jean out of her confused state.

"No, it was." Jean sighed, putting a hand to her forehead.

She watched as Scott's jaw clenched and his hands formed fists at his sides. "The Professor gives her chance after chance after chance, and look at what she does! If it was my school she'd be out by now."

"Out on the street, with no where to live and freedom to do whatever she wants. That's exactly what a girl like her needs Scott." Jean snapped.

Scott didn't have anything to say to that, just folded his arms and did a kind of pout because he knew she was right.

An argument could have brewed out of those statements but didn't as Duncan Matthews showed up with mussed hair and a hickey on his neck so dark that it was possibly the darkest shade of purple you could get without calling it black.

"There you are Jeannie, been lookin' all over for ya!" he greeted Jean, coming up behind her and pinching her butt. "Where've ya been?"

"Mostly here all night." Jean said gesturing to the surrounding living room and not looking happy at what Duncan just did. "Let me guess, you forgot to look here."

Duncan's face snapped from a 'let-me-explain' expression to a slightly relieved smile. "Must have read my mind." He said, and then he spotted Scott. "What're you doin' hangin' out with a loser like Summers here all night?"

Jean opened her mouth to say something but was cut off by Scott. "She's with me because she couldn't find you're drunk," he gestured to the mark on Duncan's neck, "cheating ass."

"Was I talkin' to you, Summers?"

"I wouldn't know, I don't speak dumbass." Scott shot back coolly, the statement punctuated with a glimmer from his red glasses.

"If you're lookin' for a fight, I'll be happy to give ya one." Duncan threatened, taking a step closer to the leader of the X-Men.

"Bring it on Matthews."

"Enough!" Jean stepped between the two teenagers. "That's enough you two. Scott, could you give me and Duncan a moment?"

Scott looked between Jean and Duncan for a few seconds before biting out a "fine."

It wasn't exactly clear who said it, but the words 'probably got that hickey from the wide receiver' were heard after Scott had turned around. Duncan, being slightly homophobic, took great offense to this and naturally assumed Scott had said it.

"I've had enough of your shit Summers!" Duncan shouted, grabbed Scott's shoulder, turned him around and socked him one in the face.

Scott didn't have time to reply, for he needed to block Duncan's next punch. He caught Duncan's fist in his hand, and punched the quarterback on the jaw. It was an all out brawl after that, Scott easily gaining the advantage due to his non-intoxicated state. Yet still, Duncan managed to break one lens on Scott's glasses and give him a black eye. The fight ended with Scott having backed Duncan into a wall, about to deliver a blow to his face that would break his nose, but was stopped by Jean.

"Scott, that's enough! Stop it!" Her hands were on Scott's arm, preventing it from going further. When Scott didn't lower his arm, she said again, "Stop it."

Scott glared stonily at Duncan before dropping his arm.

"Go somewhere Scott." Jean commanded

"But he--"

"Go away."

Scott cursed something unintelligible under his breath before stalking out of the room. Oddly enough, that party was still going strong and only a few people had noticed the fight. The rest were to busy drinking or dancing or making out.

"Kid's a god damned loose cannon." Duncan said in Scott's wake, wiping blood off of his jaw.

Jean just glared at him. "_You_ have no room to talk." She pointed a finger at him and then relaxed her angry state. "C'mon let's get you cleaned up."

* * *

This was probably the closest Logan had ever felt to panic in his entire life. Three cop cars were out front of the store, each having two cops inside of them and all of them had their guns pointed at him. And there were sounds of more coming. This wasn't good.

"Put your hands above your head." The voice behind the bull horn commanded.

Logan didn't move. He was too busy trying to figure a way out of this mess. He didn't do it. He was just trying to help.

"This isn't what it looks like officers." He called back to them. "These two guys here," he motioned to the two dead male bodies.

"No sudden movements. Keep your hands where we can see them." The bull horn sounded.

The bright light mounted on one of the cop cars was starting to hurt his eyes. He put a hand up to block the harsh light and was able to look past it some what. What he saw did not make him feel any better. These guys looked as if they were just itching to kill a mutie like him. He still hadn't retracted his claws. As soon as he thought about them, they withdrew like lightening back into his forearm. The action only seemed the set the lines on their faces into firmer positions. They were gonna kill him, they _wanted_ to kill him. But he didn't do it, they were making a mistake, it wasn't him. He didn't want to die just yet.

He took a step back, away from the officers and their cop cars and their lights and their guns. He didn't want to die just yet. Even if they didn't shoot him now, they would give him the chair or the chamber for killing that pretty girl. And if not for that, then for being a freak with metal knives that came out of his arm like some goddamned cat.

"Don't move." This time it was one of the other guys that said it, he wasn't behind the bullhorn. "Just move nice and slow towards us and we won't hurt ya."

Logan shook his head. No, that was a lie. They were gonna kill him and he'd be damned if he just bent over for these fuckers and gave them what they want. Nuh-uh man, if they wanted Logan, they were going to have to catch him.

He bolted out of the back of the store, bullets whizzing past him and colliding explosively with whatever they hit. Just before he got to the back door, pain blossomed in the back of his shoulder, lancing through it and coming out the other side. By the time he burst out of the back door and was running like a bat out of hell down the back alley the pain was almost all gone. He'd always been lucky like that. Maybe he was some kind of freak just like Gumbo; only he didn't blow shit up. Speaking of which, he needed to find his roommate fast. If there was anyone in this god-awful hick town who could get him out or at least some where safe, it was him.

* * *

"Get off of her!"

As soon as Kitty had heard those words shouted Lance was taken off of her. She gasped for fresh air, her system shocked at what had just happened. She wanted to scream at Lance, to kick his ass for trying that with her but found that Kurt had beaten her to it. He and Lance were wrestling around the room, hitting and pushing each other into things. Normally Kurt would have beaten Lance in a fight any given day, but Kurt was at a disadvantage. He was in his holographic form; he couldn't exactly walk on the walls or 'port around the room unless he wanted to invoke a panic. So Kurt had to make do with what he could do, which was basically the same that Lance could do: hit the other guy as much a possible and try and throw him into something. Lance hit Kurt hard, making him stumble back a few feet and fall on his rear. Before Lance could make it over there to beat the stuffing out of him, Kurt leaped up from the floor catching Lance in a flying tackle. Somehow in an incredible lucky streak for Lance or a bad moment for Kurt, Lance managed to flip Kurt off of him and make him stumble backwards to hit a wall. Kurt's wrist hit the wall particularly hard, the point of impact being Kurt's holo. The holo in turn crackled and fizzled out; normal looking Kurt replaced by his true blue fuzzy elf self.

Kurt, however, did not seem to notice. He started for Lance again, but was stopped by Kitty. "Kurt, no." she whispered.

He noticed Kitty was looking at him strangely. Almost like she had the first time she saw him but something was different. Was it laced with . . . worry?

"_Was_? Vhy are you looking at me like zhat?"

"Kurt," Kitty whispered again, seemingly not able to get her voice above a whisper. "You're blue."

"Of course I'm blue, zhis isn't the best time to bring zhat up." Kurt said and made to move past Kitty.

She stopped him with a hand on his wrist. "No, you're blue!" she shouted, showing him his tridactyl hand and blue fur that the entire world could see.

Lance chose that moment to start laughing. "This is great, now everyone knows what a big blue freak you are!"

Kitty crossed over to Lance and stood in front of him. "Fuck off!" she shouted before kicking him as hard as she could in the balls.

Lance coughed and went down like a sack of potatoes.

"C'mon Fuzzy, we gotta get out of here!"

* * *

The first aid kit was retrieved from underneath the kitchen sink and Jean and Duncan settled on the relatively deserted balcony. Jean looked over the edge briefly, remembering the one time she had caught Duncan after falling off at another party where him and Scott had had another face off. While she was dabbing at his split lip, Jean decided now would be the best time to at least get the ball rolling on talking to Duncan.

"Duncan, I think we need to talk."

"About what, baby?" Duncan tried to smile suavely at her, but it ended up being more of a wince.

Jean nearly choked on her own spit at the pet name. "Um. . ." she began but was cut off.

"About how pretty you are? Cause I can talk about that all night." He gently pushed her hand away from his face. "Or about you're beautiful red hair?"

It was the moments like these that made her first want to go out with Duncan. What was now fleeting moments of flattery and compliments used to be a bigger part of Duncan Matthews. But football, status and peer pressure changed him and Jean saw just how weak minded he was.

He moved closer to her, causing her to be sandwiched between Duncan and the railing. "Or we could just skip talkin' all together babe." He dipped his head down to her neck and kissed her gently there.

The kisses on her neck were enough to make her forget about wanting to tell Duncan that she might possibly be pregnant, with his baby. But it was his pet name that he had chosen to call her that night that reminded her of what was more important.

"Duncan, no--" Jean started, trying to push the taller and much stringer Duncan away.

"Aw, c'mon Jean!" Duncan whined, forgetting about what he had previously been doing. "You never want to do anything! God, you're such a prude!"

"I am not a prude." Jean replied calmly. "I just keep a level head about things." _Or is it because I know that as soon as you have me, you'll dump me?_

"Bullshit, you're just an Ice Queen, like that Gothy chick you hang around with."

"I am not an Ice Queen." Jean's voice was raised this time, her not being one to put up with Duncan's current attitude. "What about that time I ended up half naked in your bed while you're parents were gone? What about that time you had to give me back my panties at school? Or how about that other party where I don't even remember what happened but woke up at home with hickeys all over the place?" she shoved him in the chest, her ire growing with every passing second. "Or why don't you try this one on for size: I might be pregnant with your baby!"

Duncan paled and looked as if he was about to be physically sick. He stood there slack jawed and eyes wide for a few seconds, it was doubtful that he was even breathing. After a few moments, he seemed to come back to himself and an unhappy face lit took over his features.

"You're not pregnant." Duncan simply replied.

"I'm late and we've done some questionable things." Jean said her voice low and firm. "It's a possibility."

"You're not pregnant." He repeated.

"Duncan, would you fucking--"

He backhanded her across the face before she could even finish her sentence. Jean reeled, one hand gripping the railing to keep her standing upright somewhat and the other hand going to her shocked face.

Duncan opened his mouth to repeat his last statement again, but was overridden by another, gruffer voice.

"Hands off the lady, bub."

Duncan turned, more like staggered, around. "Who the fuck are you?"

Logan stalked forward, boots thumping heavily on the ground. He had heard the fighting from upstairs while waiting for Remy to get his act together "A guy who hates it when other guys hit pretty girls."

"Stay out of this, James-Dean-wannabe."

Jean however was too stunned to actively reprimand Duncan herself. He had hit her hard and her jaw was killing her. She wanted to just give him a good zap to his mind, leaving him a drooling, bumbling mess for a few days, or weeks. But how would she explain it? And what if he hit her again, Duncan was drunk; it was certainly a possibility. Were some of her teeth loose? Oh god, some of them were what if they had to be pulled?

_Snap out of it Jean!_ She mentally shook herself. _You are an X-Man—X-Woman—you are better than this!_

Jean stood tall, a certain kind of fire burning in her eyes. But it was too late, Duncan and the stranger had already started fighting. They were full-on, bare-knuckle brawling; blood and spit and sweat flying off of them. The cracks and squelches of some of the hits were nauseating and made Jean wince in sympathy.

The stranger intrigued her oddly enough. His eyes were blue like ice and yet she could tell that behind them was a kind of gentle kindness, a softer soul beneath the rough and tough exterior. Their eyes met for a split second and Jean felt something indescribable click within her. She had no time to figure it out for it was quickly sapped up by horror. She could almost predict what was going to happen next, everything slowing down to slow motion. Someone was going to get hurt, seriously hurt. She started screaming for them to stop it. She dare not get close to them but she could yell damn it. Duncan punched the stranger hard on the jaw, sending his head snapping back. She was still yelling, attracting a crowd. The stranger pushed Duncan right up again the railing. There were people watching from the windows and some coming out onto the balcony and she was still screaming. The stranger delivered a bone rattling one-two-three series of punches that made Duncan over-balance and go over the edge of the railing.

The cry was ripped from her throat, one long, seemingly unending note.

"NO!"

Jean tried moving, she needed to see him in order to catch him again but her legs weighed tons and tons. She needed to catch him but her legs wouldn't move! Time snapped back to normal and Jean found herself leaning dangerously over the railing, screaming Duncan's name.

"Jean, no!" Scott grabbed onto her and took her away from the edge. "There's nothing you can do now."

"No, no, I can still get him!" Jean scrambled for the edge again, managing to get a glimpse of the bottom. There lie Duncan on the ground, far below, a bloody and mangled mess. He was dead.

* * *

Amazing.

Incredible.

Remy didn't know enough words to describe the experience he had just shared with Rogue. She had been . . . and he, he never tired that with a woman before (which was certainly saying something) . . . and when she . . . and then he. . . . _Sapristi_! He would never forget this, even if he did end up leaving town next week. He looked over at Rogue's sleeping form, a lock of snow white hair falling on her face. He was tempted to reach out and stroke it back behind her ear, but was afraid of waking her up.

_Isn't she not supposed t' be able t' touch?_ He asked himself. He pondered it a few moments and then decided that he wasn't going to question it. It had happened and that was all he needed to know. Just as he was about to grab his pants and take a cigarette out of the pack stashed in his pocket, there was a pounding on the door. Cursing a blue streak in both Cajun and English under his breath, Remy threw on his boxers and answered the door. If who ever was at the door didn't like it, they could go fuck themselves with a spork for all he cared.

_Dis goddamned house better be on fire_, were his thoughts upon ripping open the door.

"Cajun, it pains me to say this, but I need your help."

Remy rubbed his eyes . . . nope, Logan was still there. "Logan, what in de hell are you doin' here?"

"I was gettin' beer and the place got robbed. I took out the two knuckleheads and the cops think I did it." Was all Logan said.

Remy put a hand in his hair and sighed. "Yo' fuckin' kiddin' me right?"

"Does this look like I'm fucking kidding?" Logan opened his jacket to reveal a bloodstained white shirt. Remy knew better than to ask whose blood it was.

"_Merde_." Remy cursed. "You need t' get outta here, go somewhere upstate fo' a long time."

"Tell me somethin' I don't already know." Logan groused.

Remy waved off Logan's annoyance, despite the reality of the situation. "Let me put some pants on and I'll see what I can do."

"Thanks bub."

Remy nodded and shut the door. He turned around and faced Rogue, who was surprisingly still asleep. He hated to leave her before she woke up, like she was just some cheap fuck for the night. But he had to, Logan was in trouble. He put on his pants and his shirt and with one last lingering look at the angel on the bed, left the room.

"Where de fuck did he go?" Remy said to himself once he had shut the door behind him. Logan was already gone.

_Leave him alone for ten seconds. . ._ Remy mentally griped as he thundered down the steps. He wandered the house for a few minutes before noticing people heading for the sound of screaming. Knowing that Logan either had something to do with it or was already there watching, Remy followed the people. They lead him to a different part of the house and Remy pushed through the gathering crowd. There, he saw Logan looking stunned and a vaguely familiar red head screaming and looking as if she was in shock. He approached Logan carefully.

"Logan, what did you do?"

"He hit her . . . was only protectin' the broad." Logan swallowed and seemed to get a grip on himself. "He went over the edge, Rem. That makes three people the cops're gonna pin me for."

"And a whole bunch of witnesses t'." Remy added. "We're gettin' outta here, _now_."

With that the two men pushed back through the gathering crowd and tore their way through the house. They passed by Remy's motorcycle as they ran down the driveway, the sounds of sirens already getting closer, but still far enough off for them to make a good escape hopefully. Remy ran a hand along his bike's shiny body as a way of saying 'I'll be back for you later'.

He never would come back for it.

* * *

Rogue's eyes opened slowly after hearing the door close. She woke fully and noticed that Remy was gone. Had they really slept together or had she passed out again and it was all a very good dream? She pushed herself up, her head pounding momentarily. When it subsided, Rogue noticed that she was well and truly naked meaning that it wasn't a dream. She smiled slightly, having no regrets about what she did. She didn't love him and she was sure he didn't love her, as made obvious by the fact that he was already gone. But she was glad that it had happened. A scream rent the air not to far away and Rogue jumped.

_That sounded like Jean._ She thought, getting dressed. She left the room and went down stairs, people moving towards one place in the house. Rogue followed them and along the way ran into a very panicked looking Kitty.

"Kitty, what's goin' on?"

"Rogue, thank god!" Kitty face flooded with relief when she saw her. "We so totally have to get out of here, this party's gonna turn into a riot in about five seconds."

"Why? What happened?"

"Like, where have you been? What hasn't happened? Kurt and Lance got into a fight and Kurt's holo broke, Scott and Duncan got into a big fight and I think Duncan just fell off the balcony because he got into another fight with that's guy friend of yours friend or whatever." Kitty explained.

"Fuck." Rogue cursed.

"Yeah, my thoughts exactly. So like, help me find Scott already so we can get out of here!"

"Right." Rogue nodded, standing on tiptoes to look for the X-Leader. Hopefully no one would recognize them as being associated with Kurt. She could tell already that shit was gong to hit the fan when this got out tomorrow; already there were murmurings of 'freaks' and 'mutants' floating among the partygoers, jumping from person to person like an electric spark. A hand landed on her shoulder and Rogue fought the urge to yelp. She looked up the arm and saw Scott who was keeping one eye closed and had his other arm around a very distraught looking Jean.

"We have to leave, now." That was all Scott said and he used his grip on Rogue's shoulder to steer her out of the house.

"Kitty! Ah found him!" Rogue shouted out, knowing the valley girl was somewhere near by.

Seconds later, Kitty joined them and Rogue shoved Scott's hand off of her shoulder. "Ah can walk mahself, ya know."

"Just making sure you're actually going to leave."

"Not even Ah'm stupid enough ta stay here." Rogue mumbled under her breath, shooting a glare at Scott as they left the house and got into the car where Kurt was holed up. Sirens were getting closer and they were barely going to make it out by the skin of their teeth before the rest of the people in the house heard them and panicked.

Everyone looked as if they had aged years since they left. Scott, Kurt and Rogue were bruised and tore up from fights; though Rogue wasn't nearly as bad as Kurt and Scott who were both sporting black eyes that would blossom into real shiners in the morning. Jean was sitting very quietly in her seat, a hand over her left cheek and sniffling every one in a while. Kitty was quiet as well, sporting a dark mark on her neck and slightly puffy lips from the force of Lance's kisses. The only sound was the hum of the engine as they made their way home.

Rogue was looking out the window, watching everything go by. They were driving past the smaller of Bayville's two parks. It was really just a one block by one block square patch of green with a jungle gym and a set of swings and a slide. A few trees were there too. Rogue liked to go there in the spring and summer and sit under a tree and watch the kids play and draw and think. But now as she looked there, she saw two figures, two men running pell-mell from the far side of the park. Seconds later two cop cars swung around the corner, lights on and sirens blaring. One of them was Remy.

"Stop the car!" Rogue shouted, her voice like a gunshot going off in the car. "Stop the car!"

"Are you crazy? No!" Scott shouted back.

"Stop it now!" Rogue screamed, taking off a glove.

"Rogue don't!" Kitty shouted at her.

Scott was about to shout something back at her, but slammed on the brakes instead as a police cruiser stopped dead in their tracks. The police were barricading the park, blocking off any way of escaping, including the street that Scott was currently driving down. Rogue clamored her way out of the car, not caring if she dug her elbow into Kurt's knee, accidentally pulled Jean's hair and stuck her foot in Kitty's face. Once she was free from the confines of the car, she saw that Remy and Logan were in the middle of the park now and some of the police cruisers had driven up on the grass and were boxing them in. As soon as the last car pulled into place, Logan and Remy looked around wildly like mice caught under a glass.

"Don't move! Put your hands over your head!" One of the officers shouted as he got out of his car and drew his gun on the two mutants. Other officers followed suit.

Rogue wanted to go over there, stop this mess from becoming worse. As soon as she took the first step of a run to get there, a hand on her upper arm stopped her.

"_Nein_." Kurt said with the air of a protective older brother.

"They're gonna shoot them!" Rogue pleaded, trying to wriggle her arm free from Kurt's grasp.

"More reason for you to ztay over _here_." Kurt said, his grip tightening on her arm and grabbing on to the other just to be safe.

Logan and Remy were cornered. They stood side by side in defensive positions, tense and ready to go at a second's opportunity to get away. Remy eyed each and every one of them, picking out who was the weakest, who would crack first if his made the cruiser next to them blow up. A card slipped out of his sleeve and danced between his fingers glowing a more intense pink by the second. Logan, however, decided that he had had enough of this and unleashed his claws with a loud and feral growl and stepped towards the assembled officers.

Rogue's eyes widened as she saw what was happening. As she took the breath that would fill her lungs with air to release a scream, gunshots rang out. Remy managed to fling one card away before he went down, a hand to his chest. Logan slashed one cop and was on top of his second when the officer below him put the gun to his head and fired. It was a lucky shot, the bullet drilled through his skull and tore apart the synapses that would have fired to kick start his healing factor. Disconnected from everything, they couldn't work and Logan was dead before he hit the ground.

Rogue managed to wrangle free of Kurt's grasp and ran over to where Remy lay on the ground. A cop tried to stop her but she just laid a hand on his neck and literally drained the fight out of him. The usual flood happened, overwhelmed with memories and feelings that weren't hers. But she worked through it, faster than usual because she had to get to Remy; she had to be near him. The fog cleared and she was on the ground next to him. His shirt was stained a darker crimson from the blood that rapidly spilled from two bullet holes in his chest.

"Oh Remy. . ." she whispered, tears spilling from her eyes and dropping down to mix with Remy's blood.

"Don't worry 'bout me none _chere_" Remy ground out. He coughed and breathed labouredly for a few seconds and then calmed down. "I'll be . . . fine . . ."

Dimly, another part of Rogue's brain registered that the cops were telling her to move away from Remy. How could she? He was dying right here on the ground in front of her, didn't they have any compassion, and didn't they know that he was more than just some criminal? That he had a soul and a personality? That he loved Taranteno movies and Led Zeppelin? That when ever he was nervous or agitated he put his hands through his hair because it reminded him of his foster father soothingly stroking his hair when he was little after having a bad nightmare? Did they know that?

He wasn't moving anymore. "Remy?" Rogue said, putting her hands on either side of his face. "Remy, tell me your still in there!"

No response.

Things were getting darker for Remy. He couldn't feel anything any more, he didn't even know if he was still breathing. But his eyes were still working because he could still see Rogue over him, crying her eyes out for him. Why? Why was she crying her eyes out over him, he wasn't anything special. At least not anything special enough for anybody to cry over. Her eyes were so pretty, so green. So so so pretty, why did she hide them with all that makeup? Unbelievably green eyes. It was getting colder and darker by the second. He wanted to hang on, just for Rogue, just so she would stop crying. He couldn't fight it though, it was much stronger than he was, like a crushing weight the darkness closed over him and things went dark.

"No" Rogue sobbed, the sound coming out weakly from her mouth. "No" she murmured again, putting her forehead to his. There suddenly were flashing lights everywhere and Rogue was shoved away form Remy, paramedics swooping down on him like vultures. Rogue just sat and watched as tears rolled down her cheeks. She watched as they ripped open his shirt, put pressure on his wounds, put an oxygen mask on him. She watched as they loaded him into the back of the ambulance and drove away. And she continued to stare at the spot for what seemed like a very long while.

"Come, Rogue, time to go."

Rogue looked up, her eyes filled with the expression of a lost child. Ororo was standing over her, a hand extended to help her up. She _had_ been staring for a long time, long enough for the Professor to come and straighten things out with the police to let them go home for the night. Rogue took Ororo's hand, making sure to use her gloved hand. When she stood, Ororo carefully put a comforting arm around her and walked her to the car. Again, not one word was uttered on the ride home, which seemed so much longer than usual.

* * *

A/N: Yay, I got it out. Phew, that was a long one. Three deaths in one chapter, that's gotta be a record, and I'm probably gong to get a record number of flames for killing off Remy and Logan (I doubt any one will care about Duncan). But somebody might not really be dead, so keep your eyes peeled for either the sequel or the epilogue-y type chapter that will definitely be way shorter than this one. So make sure you put me on your Author Alert thingy incase I decide to jump right to the sequel!

SG


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